Dit is ons nieuw hondje Kira, een kruising van een waterhond en een Podenko. Ze is sinds 7 februari 2024 bij ons en druk bezig ons hart te veroveren. Het is een lief, aanhankelijk hondje, dat zich op een week snel aan ons heeft aangepast. Ze is heel vinnig en nieuwsgierig, een heel ander hondje dan Noleke.
This is our new dog Kira, a cross between a water dog and a Podenko. She has been with us since February 7, 2024 and is busy winning our hearts. She is a sweet, affectionate dog who quickly adapted to us within a week. She is very quick and curious, a very different dog than Noleke.
DEAR VISITOR,
MY BLOG EXISTS ALREADY 13 YEARS AND 2 MONTH.
ON 06/08/2024 MORE THAN 2.161.100
VISITORS FROM 135 DIFFERENT NATIONS ALREADY FOUND THEIR WAY TO MY BLOG.
THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF 400GUESTS PER DAY.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG AND HOPE YOU ENJOY EACH TIME.
The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld In België had je vooral BUFON of het Belgisch UFO-Netwerk, dat zich met UFO's bezighoudt. BEZOEK DUS ZEKER VOOR ALLE OBJECTIEVE INFORMATIE , enkel nog beschikbaar via Facebook en deze blog.
Verder heb je ook het Belgisch-Ufo-meldpunt en Caelestia, die prachtig, doch ZEER kritisch werk leveren, ja soms zelfs héél sceptisch...
Voor Nederland kan je de mooie site www.ufowijzer.nl bezoeken van Paul Harmans. Een mooie site met veel informatie en artikels.
MUFON of het Mutual UFO Network Inc is een Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in alle USA-staten en diverse landen.
MUFON's mission is the analytical and scientific investigation of the UFO- Phenomenon for the benefit of humanity...
Je kan ook hun site bekijken onder www.mufon.com.
Ze geven een maandelijks tijdschrift uit, namelijk The MUFON UFO-Journal.
Since 02/01/2020 is Pieter ex-president (=voorzitter) of BUFON, but also ex-National Director MUFON / Flanders and the Netherlands. We work together with the French MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP.
ER IS EEN NIEUWE GROEPERING DIE ZICH BUFON NOEMT, MAAR DIE HEBBEN NIETS MET ONZE GROEP TE MAKEN. DEZE COLLEGA'S GEBRUIKEN DE NAAM BUFON VOOR HUN SITE... Ik wens hen veel succes met de verdere uitbouw van hun groep. Zij kunnen de naam BUFON wel geregistreerd hebben, maar het rijke verleden van BUFON kunnen ze niet wegnemen...
31-03-2018
Chinese space lab to fall on Easter Sunday
Chinese space lab to fall on Easter Sunday
There is a good chance parts of the craft will fall in the ocean but European space authorities admit nobody can predict this.
A piece of Chinese spacecraft is due to plunge to Earth sometime in the evening on Easter Sunday or the Monday morning following, the European Space Agency has said.
The Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace 1), which is about the size of a bus, was sent into orbit in 2011 for experiments as part of China's space programme.
It had been set for a controlled re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
But it stopped working in March 2016 - three years after it was last occupied - and there is no way of knowing where it will land.
In ESA's most recent reentry forecast, the space debris reentry has been pushed back to 1 April.
Image:Tiangong-1's potential re-entry areas.
Pic: ESA
The agency explained: "One of the main reasons why it is so difficult to make an accurate reentry predictions, even if just a few days in advance of an expected reentry, materialised during Thursday this week.
"A high-speed stream of particles from the Sun, which was expected to reach Earth and influence our planet's geomagnetic field, did, in fact, not have any effect, and calmer space weather around Earth and its atmosphere is now expected in the coming days.
"This means that the density of the upper atmosphere, through which Tiangong-1 is moving, did not increase as predicted (which would have dragged the spacecraft down sooner) and hence the ESA Space Debris Office has adjusted the predicted decay rate.
"This implies that the new (and still uncertain) reentry window has shifted to late in the day on 1 April."
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, noted how the spacecraft was orbiting above west the Indian Ocean and Malaysia shortly after 7pm UK time, having earlier swung across the United States.
Without being able to communicate with the space lab, Earth-based controllers have no way of firing its engines or thrusters and no way of controlling its descent.
The craft is about 120 miles from Earth, down from about 185 miles in January, according to the European Space Agency.
Researchers had said that a number of the spacecraft's parts - including its dense rocket engines - would be unlikely to burn up, leaving chunks of the craft to crash towards the planet's surface.
Image:Tiangong-1 is expected to re-enter on Easter Sunday. Pic: CMSE
They fear that debris could survive the atmosphere and land anywhere 43 degrees either side of the equator.
The China Manned Space Engineering Office said on its WeChat social media account that falling spacecraft do "not crash into the Earth fiercely like in sci-fi movies, but turn into a splendid (meteor shower) and move across the beautiful starry sky as they race towards the Earth".
They said the atmospheric drag would tear away the external components of the craft when it gets to an altitude of around 60 miles.
The heat will grow and friction will cause the main structure of the lab to burn or blow up, with most of the parts dissolving in the air.
ESA✔@esa
Every week, on average, a substantial, inert satellite drops into our atmosphere and burns up. Monitoring these reentries and warning European civil authorities has become routine work for ESA’s #spacedebris experts #tiangong1#reentry Read more:
Some of the debris will fall slowly before landing, most likely in the ocean, the Chinese predicted.
The ESA said nearly 6,000 uncontrolled re-entries of large objects have occurred over the past 60 years without anyone being hurt.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said: "I want to highlight that we attach importance to this issue and we've been dealing with it very responsibly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations.
"If there is a need, we will promptly be in touch with the relevant country."
Google Earth: Is this proof of ‘Hollow Earth?’ - UFO hunters found THIS mystery structure
Google Earth: Is this proof of ‘Hollow Earth?’ - UFO hunters found THIS mystery structure
GOOGLE Earth UFO hunters believe they have uncovered a mile high structure under the Pacific Ocean. Is this the spooky proof Hollow Earth theorists have been waiting for?
UFO hunters beleive they have found proof of Hollow Theory
Google Earth is a computer geobrowser that accesses satellite and aerial imagery to create a 3D representation of the world for viewers to browse and explore.
Similar to Google Maps, this tool allows visitors to virtually explore the globe from the comfort of their bedroom.
From the highest of mountains to under the ocean, a detailed map has captured the world in a way that way never possible before. However the tool doesn't only capture the wonderful, some users use the tool in search of the ‘unexplained.’
In a spot in line with the great Giza Pyramids, has one user captured proof of extraterrestrial activity? UFOlogists have discovered a massive structure under the ocean measuring a massive one mile in height.
Located in exact line with the oldest of the three Giza pyramids in Egypt, the strange structure can be seen protruding out of the depths.
Whilst zooming into the site, UFOlogists show the large blue spike sticking out of the ground with no other surrounding objects explaining the spooky structure.
Author of The Perfect Edition, Shefket, explains that most believe the structure is not natural, and that nothing else “remotely resembles it on Earth.”
For some, the believers of the Hollow Earth theory, who believe the a whole other world lies beneath ours, this is all the proof needed to confirm such beliefs.
Google Earth/ Perfect Edition
The structure meatures one mile in height
These people also claim that the race inhabiting inner Earth don’t really hide there
Shefket
Shefket went on to add that after close inspection a “very large gap somewhere deeper than the ocean floor” has been discovered.
“These people also claim that the race inhabiting inner Earth don’t really hide there, but have chosen to come out very rarely, which probably means they do so in order to study us and not for resources.”
“More than 95 per cent of the world’s seas and oceans are entirely unexplored and most of the globe is covered in water, so mankind only knows very little about the planet it inhabits.
“If aliens could travel through space then a UFO would have no problem whatsoever submerging and navigating the oceans just like a submarine.”
Google Earth/ Perfect Edition
UFO hunters now believe this weird structure is park of global network
According to Shefket UFO hunters now believe this weird structure is park of global network used by ancient advanced civilisations to transmit and receive large amounts of energy through great distances.
Without any further explanation, visitors are left to decide if they believe this spooky structure really is from another world.
If it is as Hollow Earth theorists suggest, this remarkable discovery could start a wider search into the unexplored oceans.
Shefket revealed: “No country has yet to make an official statement on this discovery which seems a bit odd, let alone send an exploration team.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Africa Is Splitting in Two, and Here's the Proof
Africa Is Splitting in Two, and Here's the Proof
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer
A bird's-eye view of a gorge in the East African Rift at Engaruka, Tanzania.
Credit: Ulrich Doering/Alamy
A piece of East Africa is expected break off the main continent in tens of millions of years. And if you need any proof, look no further than Kenya's Rift Valley, where a giant, gaping tear opened up following heavy rains and seismic activity, according to Face2Face Africa.
The enormous crack appeared on March 19 and measures more than 50 feet (15 meters) wide and several miles along, Face2Face Africa and other news sources reported. Moreover, it's still growing longer. [50 Interesting Facts About Planet Earth]
The rift is likely a sign of things to come as the plate tectonics under Africa rearrange themselves. The majority of Africa sits on top of the African Plate. However, a long, vertical piece of eastern Africa lies on top of the Somali Plate. This juncture where the two plates meet is known as the East African Rift, which stretches an astonishing 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers), or about the distance from Denver to Boston.
To avoid confusion (given that Africa doesn't just sit on one plate), researchers call the giant African plate the Nubian Plate. In essence, the Nubian and Somali plates are being split in two, according to a piece in The Conversation by Lucia Perez Diaz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Fault Dynamics Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London.
A crack that opened up in Kenya’s Rift Valley, damaging a section of the Narok-Nairobi highway, is still growing...
2 Pilots in Different Planes Saw the Same UFO. The FAA Can't Explain It.
2 Pilots in Different Planes Saw the Same UFO. The FAA Can't Explain It.
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer
Two separate flights reported seeing the same 'UFO' in the Arizona desert in February.
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
Two airline pilots spotted a mysterious, reflective object hovering some 40,000 feet (12,000 meters) over southern Arizona last month, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is stumped.
According to radio transmissions between the befuddled pilots and air traffic controllers (which you can listen to in full, thanks to an FAA recording recently released to the Phoenix New Times), the sighting occurred around 3:30 p.m. local time on Feb. 24, somewhere over the Sonoran Desert near Phoenix.
"Was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the first pilot asked while flying a Learjet west toward California. [7 Things Most Often Mistaken for UFOs]
"Negative," an air traffic controller at the FAA's Albuquerque Air Traffic Center in New Mexico answered.
"OK," the pilot responded. "Something did."
The object, whatever it was, was flying high — at least a few thousand feet above the jet, which was cruising at an altitude of around 37,000 feet (11,000 m), the New Times reported. A few minutes later, the FAA asked another nearby flight — an American Airlines Airbus traveling in the same direction — to keep an eye out for anything "passing over" it in the desert.
The confused pilot agreed. And sure enough, within a few minutes, the Airbus crew saw the same mystery object fly over their plane.
"Yeah, something just passed over us," the Airbus pilot reported. "I couldn't make it out, whether it was a balloon or what … but it had a big reflection on it and it was several thousand feet above us, going the opposite direction."
Several weeks later, authorities are still stumped as to the object's origin. Beyond these two pilot reports, the FAA couldn't verify that any other aircraft were around. It likely wasn't a "Google balloon," the FAA reported, nor a weather balloon or a military craft.
"We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons," an FAA representative told the New Times.
In other words, whatever the UFO was, the FAA should have known about it. But it didn't.
This report comes just a few months after a former Pentagon official revealed that the government has been quietly running an official UFO detection program since 2007. An investigation into the program by The New York Times turned up striking footage taken by two Navy fighter pilots, who appear to encounter a mysterious glowing object midair.
Reports like these may be more common than you imagine. According to the National UFO Reporting Center — an online database of alleged UFO sightings in America — there have been nearly 650 UFO sightings reported so far in 2018. However, the website advises, "Many of the new reports have been submitted by individuals who elect to remain anonymous… we encourage visitors to our website to be discriminating in what they accept as accurate and reliable."
Mystery of ‘alien UFO’ seen hovering near rescue helicopter solved
Mystery of ‘alien UFO’ seen hovering near rescue helicopter solved
Jasper Hamill
It was the blurry photo which prompted UFO investigators to claim that aliens were visiting Earth.
But one one researcher believes he’s solved the mystery of ‘twin UFOs’ seen hovering near a military helicopter carrying out a rescue off the coast of southern France.
The sighting was made in footage of a rescue carried out in 2014 after a ship called ‘The Luno’ smashed into a sea-wall at Anglet and broke into two pieces.
It has come to light thanks to the publication of a book called UFO Photo by Jason Gleave, who used to work for the RAF,
He told The Sun the UFOs flew in formation as if they were watching the lifesavers at work.
He said: ‘Upon analysing the footage the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Erm, no it’s definitely a bird
‘Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions.
‘Upon closer analysis of the video frames the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other.’
However, an alien investigation group called UFO of Interest begged to differ.
It tweeted: ‘Those objects aren’t UFOs but a seagull filmed with a rod-like effect due to motion blur.
‘The ‘double image’ of it is most likely to be caused by an interlaced video and motion artefacts known as interlacing effects [which happen] when recorded objects move quickly.’
ufoofinterest.org@ufoofinterest
UK tabloids shared this clip reported by hoax promoter SecureTeam10. Those objects aren't UFOs but a seagull filmed w/ a rodlike effect due to motion blur, during rescue operations by helicopter in SW France after a Spanish cargo ship slammed into a jetty and split in two (2014). pic.twitter.com/5ca1nHa3DY
ufoofinterest.org@ufoofinterest
Watch how many seagulls there were during rescue operations. Source:
The video, taken in Russia by Maxim Rodionov, shows the bright light in the sky on Wednesday evening above his hometown of Zadonsk, south west of Lipetsk.
As he walks toward the phenomenon, Rodionov explains there doesn’t appear to be any sound coming from the object or flashing of the lights which would indicate it was a helicopter or plane.
He raises the question of whether the source of the object is alien life, or perhaps a secret Russian military program.
Andrey Novgorodsky, another resident of the town, explained he said seen the object too and believed it to be alien life.
GETTY/FACEBOOK
SPOTTED: UFO sighting in Russia
“They froze and then started to fly off, and then evaporated”
Andrey Novgorodsky
Novgorodsky, however, claimed to have a connection with the aliens, even suggesting they had evaporated into thin air.
He said: “I can say that it's true, today I saw the same thing, when I looked at them, they froze and then started to fly off, and then evaporated.”
Dimetrius Kvadrametrius also claimed to have spotted the strange events in Moscow.
He said: “I also saw this on March 28 at 22:21pm over the river in Moscow.
“The UFO slowly flew for about 5 minutes.”
The sighting comes barely a week after it was revealed there could be an alien base on the moon.
How UFO sightings have captured human imagination for centuries
How UFO sightings have captured human imagination for centuries
ByMORGAN WINSOR
WATCH2 pilots report UFO sightings over Arizona
For centuries, mankind has reported seeing UFOs in various parts of the world. The alleged sightings have captivated the public imagination and raised questions about life beyond our planet.
Early cave drawings, ancient texts and centuries-old paintings appear to depict or describe human contact with extraterrestrial beings and UFOS, or unidentified flying objects. For instance, the 1710 painting by Dutch artist Aert De Gelder appears to show a UFO illuminating the baptism of Jesus Christ.
In modern times, purported sightings of UFOs have captured headlines and newscasts worldwide. Most recently, media attention turned to an audio recording released by the Federal Aviation Administration in which two pilots flying on different aircraft above Arizona in late February report having close encounters with a mysterious object.
According to the FBI, a "rash of sightings" of UFOs swept the United States in 1947, after World War II amid a heightened interest in aerospace flight and technology. The FBI says it helped investigate the claims between 1947 and 1954.
"Although the newly formed U.S. Air Force was the primary investigator of these sightings, the FBI received many reports and worked for a time with the Air Force to investigate these matters," the agency says on its website, where records of some of the reports are published.
Reuters
A sign off route U.S. 285, north of Roswell, New Mexico, points west to the alleged 1947 crash site of a flying saucer on the Corn Ranch, June 20 1997.more +
Perhaps the most famous incident took place northwest of Roswell, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947, when a foreman of a ranch came across mysterious debris, including metal rods and paper-thin, metallic-looking scraps. The man, William Brazel, reported the strange wreckage to the local sheriff, who contacted the nearby Roswell Army Air Field.
Maj. Jesse Marcel and other intelligence officers were sent to recover the materials, according to the Roswell Daily Record.
A public information officer for the Roswell Army Air Field then released a statement saying officers had retrieved a "flying disc," which had crashed on the ranch near Roswell.
Military officials later retracted the statement after investigating the debris, saying it was actually remnants of a downed weather balloon.
"I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon," Brazel told the newspaper in an interview in July 1947.
Major Jesse Marcel from the Roswell Army Air Field with debris found 75 miles north west of Roswell, N.M., in June 1947.
Since the incident near Roswell, a number of non-governmental organizations were set up to investigate alleged UFO sightings. The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), founded in 1969, is said to be the oldest and largest in the United States. The Ohio-based nonprofit catalogs and probes cases of purported sightings from around the world.
MUFON recorded 7,651 worldwide reports of UFO sightings in 2017, according to its database. It has more than 800 reports so far this year.
The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) has been recording and investigating alleged sightings and contacts with extraterrestrials since 1974. People who have submitted reports to the Washington state-based group claim to have seen an unexplainable object, often making no audible sounds as it moves in the sky, emits beams of light or changes color.
One woman reported seeing "small, metallic spheres in the sky" while looking out her kitchen window in Nooksack, Washington, in the afternoon of March 19. She thought they were birds at first until they began to weave through dark clouds and they reflected the sun, the woman said in her report to NUFORC.
"As I watched the objects, I observed them moving up and down in and out of the clouds, as well as side to side," she wrote. "Then they were gone. They disappeared into the clouds and I haven't seen them since."
STOCK/Getty Images
An undated stock photo of an airplane.
Speaking to ABC News late last year, retired U.S. Navy Cmdr. David Fravor described seeing a 40-foot-long wingless object during a routine training mission off California's coast on Nov. 14, 2004. The former pilot recalled how the object flew at incredible speeds in an erratic pattern, though he said it had no exhaust trail in infrared scanning.
"I can tell you, I think it was not from this world," Fravor told ABC News in an interview in December 2017. "I'm not crazy, haven't been drinking. It was —- after 18 years of flying, I've seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close."
Fravor's retelling of this bizarre encounter came after the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed to ABC News that it ran a program for investigating reports of UFOs for years. The once-secret program was funded from 2007 to 2012. According to The New York Times, the Department of Defense spent $22 million on the endeavor.
"The Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program ended in the 2012 time frame," the Pentagon told ABC News in a statement on Dec. 16, 2017. "It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change. The DoD takes seriously all threats and potential threats to our people, our assets and our mission and takes action whenever credible information is developed."
More recently, the Federal Aviation Administration released the audio recording of a conversation between air traffic control and two pilots on different aircraft who both reported having close encounters with a mysterious object flying high above southern Arizona within minutes of each other on Feb. 24.
"Something just passed over us," one of the pilots says to the Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center. "I don't know what it was."
A spokesperson for the FAA told ABC News that the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area at the time of the reported sightings.
NASA's Next Mars Lander Will Look Deep to Understand the Red Planet — and Earth
NASA's Next Mars Lander Will Look Deep to Understand the Red Planet — and Earth
By Sarah Lewin, Space.com Associate Editor
NASA's InSight lander will set three main instruments on the Red Planet's surface, including a probe buried up to 16 feet (5 meters) down to measure the flow of heat.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA's next Mars lander, InSight, is set to launch May 5 at the earliest from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and it will bring a trio of powerful instruments to measure the wobbles, quakes and heat that reveal what's going on deep inside the Red Planet — and perhaps offer insight into how Earth formed, as well.
"The goal of InSight is nothing less than to better understand the birth of the Earth, the birth of the planet that we live on," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. "And we're going to do that by going to Mars, which seems a little bit counterintuitive."
Banerdt spoke during a NASA news conference Thursday (March 29) at JPL to discuss the upcoming mission, which is scheduled to launch between May 5 and June 8, and arrive on Mars Nov. 26. [In Pictures: NASA's InSight Lander to Probe Heart of Mars]
The mission, whose name is short for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport," is currently slated launch on May 5 at 4 a.m. PDT (1100 GMT) on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. That means skywatchers along California's coast, from Santa Maria to San Diego, should be able to see the launch if skies are clear, NASA officials said — and it may be visible farther down the coast as well. (Details for watching the launch in person are online here.)
When InSight arrives at Mars, the spacecraft will spend a dramatic 7 minutes decelerating from 12,500 mph (20,000 km/h) to just 5 mph (8 km/h) before dropping down on the surface, Banerdt said. Then, over a matter of months, it will lower its instruments to the surface to begin its investigation.
"How we get from a ball of featureless rock into a planet that may or may not support life is a key question in planetary science, and these processes that do this all happen in the first tens of millions of years, which is just a few seconds at the beginning of the life of a planet that lasts 4.5 billion years," Banerdt said. "We'd like to be able to understand what happened, and the clues to that are in the structure of the planet that gets set up in these early years."
While Earth is an active planet, with plate tectonics and other processes scrambling its layers, Mars should have a cleaner slate. "Mars is a smaller planet; it's less active than the Earth. And so it has retained the fingerprints of those early processes in its basic structure," Banerdt said. "The thickness of the crust, the composition of the mantle, the size and composition of its core; by mapping out these boundaries, these various different sections of the inside of the planet, we can then understand better how the planet formed and how our planet got to be the way it is."
What's inside Mars?
To learn about the early days of the solar system's rocky planets, InSight will need to go deep. Its first key instrument, a seismometer, will measure minuscule "marsquakes" rippling through the planet. Marsquakes generated on the other side of the planet will be distorted by the planet's interior, so scientists can measure them to learn about the composition deep inside. While previous missions, such as the Viking lander, have carried seismometers, none were sensitive enough to pick up these marsquakes, Banerdt said; InSight should be able to precisely measure vibrations with amplitudes as small as an atom.
Apollo astronauts measured moonquakes during their exploration of the lunar surface, and researchers measure earthquakes every day; Banerdt anticipates marsquakes' size and frequency will be somewhere in between.
NASA's InSight lander will place a seismometer on the surface to measure tiny marsquakes as they pass through the Red Planet, revealing clues about the planet's interior.
Credit: NASA TV/JPL-Caltech
The next investigation is a radio science experiment. InSight's instrument will be in contact with the Deep Space Network radio dishes on Earth, and by measuring the frequency shift of those communications, researchers can track the instrument's location to an accuracy of within a few inches. As Mars spins, with InSight on its surface, researchers on Earth will be able to measure how the north pole of Mars wobbles over the course of the Martian year. The frequency and size of the wobble will correlate with the Martian core's size and density.
For the third experiment, researchers will use InSight to measure the amount of heat flowing through the planet. Apollo astronauts did something similar by pushing a temperature probe several inches into the moon's surface, measuring slight temperature increases as it descended. Astronauts took less than a half-hour for the measurement, Banerdt said, but the similar robotic operation on Mars will hammer the heat probe down little by little, sending it about a millimeter every 3 seconds. (It'll need about 10,000 of those jolts downward to take the full set of measurements, Banerdt said.) That data will let researchers understand how heat radiates from Mars.
A heat probe will slowly hammer itself into the Martian surface from the InSight lander.
Credit: NASA TV/JPL-Caltech
An interplanetary first
The precision and depth of these measurements are a first for Mars, and the mission has another first closer to home: It's the first planetary mission launched from the West Coast, according to Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL. Because the mission was originally designed for a smaller spacecraft, the Atlas V is powerful enough to lift InSight from either coast — and the West had much less rocket traffic "congestion," Hoffman said at the news conference.
"Depending on where you are in Southern California, you'll be able to see the spacecraft at various points along its ascent as it heads off on its way to Mars," he added. "This should be quite spectacular because it is an early morning hour, so it should light up the sky and be very visible throughout pretty much all of Southern California, even down into Mexico… If you happen to be up and [with] nothing better to do at four in the morning, please take a look out your back window."
Jamie Singer, InSight instrument deployment lead, demonstrates the mission's instruments during a news conference March 29.
Credit: NASA TV/JPL-Caltech
Once the lander reaches the Martian surface on Nov. 26, it will have a very important first task.
"InSight's going to land on a new place on Mars that none of us have seen from the surface before, so like any tourist, we're going to want to take some pictures," Jaime Singer, InSight instrument deployment lead at JPL, said remotely from a simulated Martian environment at JPL, where she demonstrated how the instruments will deploy. "InSight has two cameras for that purpose. [A] camera on the body of the lander will take the first image that we get back from Mars." Researchers will use that image, which should be available the day the spacecraft lands, to get the lay of the land before deploying its instruments.
The researchers are clearly in high spirits as the launch date approaches, getting ready for an exciting landing process and priceless data about the interior of the solar system's rocky planets.
"The first time we get a marsquake down on the surface, I think I'm going to be dancing around the room," Banerdt said. There was a seismometer on Viking, which landed when he was in graduate school, but it wasn't sensitive enough to detect any seismic data. "Over my career, there's all these questions I had about Mars that could only really be answered with a seismometer," he said. "And so when we see that first quake, that's the final — underlined, bold type — this is actually going to work, and we're going to start getting the kind of detailed information about the inside of Mars that we've been waiting for for 40, 50 years."
"I'm not sure how I feel about you dancing — I've seen you dance before," Hoffman joked.
InSight carries instruments and instrument components from several European partners; France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales led the team that built the ultrasensitive seismometer, and the German Aerospace Center developed the thermal probe, NASA officials said in a statement.
Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her@SarahExplains.
Chinese Space Station Tiangong-1 May Fall to Earth Later Than Expected
Chinese Space Station Tiangong-1 May Fall to Earth Later Than Expected
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
Update for 6 p.m. EDT: Tiangong-1 is now forecast to re-enter Earth's atmosphere on April 1 at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT), give or take 9 hours, according to the Aerospace Corp.
Original story: A doomed Chinese space station will fall to Earth later than expected due to changes in the sun's predicted activity, the European Space Agency's (ESA's) Space Debris Office in Germany predicted.
An updated ESA forecast issued today (March 30) said the 8.5-metric-ton (9.4 tons) space lab will fall to Earth later in the day on April 1. That's because the sun's activity is weaker than expected, ESA explained.
Tiangong-1's orbit takes the station very close to Earth's atmosphere right now. When the sun is more active, charged particles from the solar wind hit Earth's atmosphere, ESA officials said. These particles make Earth's gases balloon farther into space, increasing the gas density at higher altitudes. These gases, in turn, affect the drag Tiangong-1 experiences as it circles the Earth. [In Photos: China's Tiangong-1 Space Station]
The stronger the drag, the faster Tiangong-1 will fall. However, because the sun's activity is weaker than predicted, the atmosphere didn't balloon as much. Tiangong-1 will therefore experience less drag and descend more slowly than expected, ESA said.
China's first space station Tiangong-1, shown here in an artist's illustration, is expected to fall to Earth around April 1, 2018. But it may fall later than some forecasts predict, experts say.
Credit: China Manned Space Engineering Office
"A high-speed stream of particles from the sun, which was expected to reach Earth and influence our planet's geomagnetic field, did, in fact, not have any effect, and calmer space weather around Earth and its atmosphere is now expected in the coming days," ESA officials said in the forecast.
"This means that the density of the upper atmosphere, through which Tiangong-1 is moving, did not increase as predicted (which would have dragged the spacecraft down sooner), and hence the ESA Space Debris Office has adjusted the predicted decay rate."
ESA emphasized that the re-entry window is still variable and uncertain. When the school-bus-size space station does fall, it will descend somewhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south latitudes, underneath its current orbital inclination. This path includes many populated parts of the world, including the United States.
This map by the European Space Agency shows the area in which China's Tiangong-1 space station could fall (shown in green) around April 1, 2018.
Credit: European Space Agency
The station's unpredictable fall has attracted attention around the world, along with worries that space debris might crash into structures or people below. Under a United Nations treaty, liability would likely rest with China. That said, the chances of someone getting hit are infinitesimally small; you have a far better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot.
Harvard University astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Space.com's sister site Live Science that he predicts only 220 to 440 lbs. (100 to 200 kilograms) of debris from Tiangong-1 will make it to the planet's surface. Still, the space station will put on a spectacular show as it falls, he said.
"Fireballs are almost certain," said McDowell, a frequent commenter on Tiangong-1's descent who also works on NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. "What happens is that there are some dense sections of the lab connected together by a rather thin structure," McDowell added, explaining how the fireballs are generated. "The thin structure melts first, turning the lab into a bunch — a few to a few dozen, depending — of independent pieces which melt and burn more slowly — fireballs."
There are many past examples of satellites or space stations falling uncontrollably to Earth and generating space debris. Perhaps the most famous one is Skylab, a former NASA space station that dropped large pieces in rural Australia in 1979 as it fell. Skylab, however, was a much larger structure. Its mass came in at about 100 tons (90.7 metric tons), or about 10 times more massive than Tiangong-1.
Tiangong-1 was the first Chinese space station. After its launch in 2011, two crews of taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) visited the station, in 2012 and 2013. China remained in communication with Tiangong-1 until 2016. Since then, the station has been dropping slowly toward Earth for an inevitable, deadly (to the spacecraft) encounter with the atmosphere. China also has an active successor space station in orbit, called Tiangong-2, that launched in 2016.
Editor Robbie Graham has given his blessing to all contributing authors of UFOs: Reframing the Debateto post their individual essays online. If you haven’t done so though, you should still grab a copy of this anthology –if nothing else, so you can properly adorn your book shelves with a kickass book cover designed by yours truly
Despite some personal reticence due to the exhaustive amount of work it took the first time, Robbie has confirmed that a second volume of Reframing the Debate will be published in the not-so-distant future. That makes me very happy because the field needs the occasional kick in the pants by those who still deeply care about the subject, as was the case with all the contributors no matter their contrasting opinions on what the mystery actually means. Because of that, I sincerely hope that for volume 2 an entirely new batch of writers gets assembled, so different voices can be added to the discussion –I already have some suggestions of my own on who should be invited, but I’d like to read your thoughts as well.
As for myself, this was and still is the longest thing I’ve ever written, and without a doubt the most difficult one to ‘bind together’ and complete as a unified, structured read. When Robbie first reached out to me in 2016 to ask me if I wanted to be a part of Reframing the Debate, I didn’t hesitate that much despite the fact I honestly didn’t feel I had a whole lot of original things to say about my beloved flying saucers, either. I’ve never considered myself to be a ‘UFOlogist’ because I’ve never been out in the field taking pictures, measuring landing tracks or interviewing witnesses; nevertheless I’ve studied the subject for most of my life, and as with anyone who takes a passionate interest into something, you get to think about it a lot over the years. And so I pitched to Robbie some of my most intimate thoughts about what UFOs represent to me personally, and what I feel their real influence in culture might be. He liked the idea and let me roll with it for the many months that it took to finally get the damn thing out of my head in a semi-coherent form. Given the positive response I’ve received from people whose opinion I deeply respect once the book was out, I guess I didn’t do much of a half-ass job…
Robbie also gave me the freedom to illustrate my essay with 3 original pieces, inspired by both the theme and also the comic book influences I used as references. The featured image at the top for example, is both a homage to Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s The Killing Joke, as well as to one of the primordial examples of The Grinning Man archetype in Fortean phenomena –Springheeled Jack.
So without further ado, here it is for the enjoyment of Daily Grail readers, my own little addition to this tremendously valuable volume, which was received with equal measure of praise and condemnation by people on both sides of the UFO discussion, true believers and fundamental skeptics alike –which means we must’ve done something right!
*****
Anarchy in the UFO!
“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos.”
Batman: The Dark Knight (2008)
Let us start with a somewhat impertinent question: Why are you doing this?
I mean, why do you find yourself presently with your hands on this book, reading these words on this particular moment?
Don’t you have anything better to do with your time? Friends to meet, bills to pay, a lawn to mow, or a Netflix series to binge-watch?
If the answer lies in the fact that you are interested in the topic of this volume –the UFO phenomenon– well hooray and good for you, fellow weirdo. But is that it?
Have you ever bothered to pry deeper into the origin of this odd interest of yours? Tried to understand the fuel driving your passion for a subject which is mostly perceived as an absurdity by the majority of humanity and our social institutions?
One of the reasons you’re reading this essay is because I, its author, have too held a lifelong fascination –nay, obsession really– with UFOs. Like most people lured by the hypnotic power of those brightly multi-colored objects, throughout the years I consumed claim after claim of encounters between witnesses and this Other reality, as if the pages of those books now gathering dust in my library had been laced with an addictive substance.
I took my fix of reports, believed the theories proposed by the so-called experts in the field, only to turn them down and replace them with other solutions to the mystery submitted by charismatic mavericks once they succeeded their predecessors. Accounts which I first regarded as genuine evidence of otherworldly visitation were eventually discarded as crude frauds; whereas new cases were hailed by newcomers as proof Contact was just around the corner. If all this sounds familiar to you, dear reader, is because it is the typical cycle in which all UFO enthusiasts eventually fall into.
Sadly, most of them never do find a way out of it…
Unlike most aficionados, though, I decided to stop pedalling the wheel for a moment and approach the problem from a different perspective: I took Jacques Vallee’s speculations to task and shifted my focus not on what UFOs are, but rather on what they reportedly do, and the effect their presence (whether factual or fictional) have in the affairs of men. Suddenly the disc presumed to serve as a vehicle for sojourning outer space turned into a mirror for surveying inner space. And thus I finally had a glimpse of Truth –if not about the nature of UFOs, at least about the nature of myself.
For you see, dear reader, the truth UFOs taught me about my own self some time ago, is that I’m an anarchist. And if you keep reading these pages, that proves deep down you’re one too –whether you want to admit it or not.
So do what thou wilt, friend, and read on… or not.
* * * *
–“Uuuugh. Somebody please tell me what I’m doing here…”
–“Doing?
You’re doing what any sane man in your appalling circumstances would do.
You’re going mad.”
―Alan Moore, The Killing Joke (1988)
For an adult, there’s no easier way to recapture the feelings of early childhood than contemplating the night sky. Children are not only constantly exploring the world they have recently arrived into, they are also learning to recognize and control the fiery impulses fueling their young bodies; which is why most of their experiences are a mixture of disparaging emotions: Sadness combined with happiness, curiosity blended with repulsiveness, wonder tinged with fear.
Gazing at the stars brings forth the inner kid in all of us, because that cosmic vastness not only gives humans an incredibly disproportionate sense of scale with which to compare our fleeting existences, but it also serves as an unsympathetic reminder that all those energies unfolding before our eyes are totally beyond our control. Measured by the stellar yardstick, we’re but a bunch of helpless rugrats.
Understanding a thing is, though, the beginning of power over that thing. Our species has come a long way since those nights sitting by the campfire, when our nomadic ancestors played to connect those distant dots to create gods and monsters suited for their idiosyncratic mythologies; now we realize those points are suns like our own, so distant many of them are but a ghostly echo of their former self. And despite the fact those celestial bodies won’t bow to our will (not in the way we’ve already started to tame other formidable forces of Nature) they have nevertheless yielded to the might of our Reason, and we learned to calculate their goings and comings over the horizon with startling accuracy. Predictability begets familiarity, and regularity is an antidote to anxiety.
Other more random phenomena, which were universally considered bad omens by ancient cultures all around the globe, such as the passing of lonely comets or meteor strikes, have also started to fall into the cycle of regularity. Yes, we know sooner or later some vagrant space boulder will challenge our title of dominant species over the Earth –a test the dinosaurs failed– but at least we now know it’s not a question of ‘If’, but of ‘When.’
In his globally acclaimed TV series Cosmos [1], Carl Sagan tells his audience how during the age of Copernicus and Kepler Astronomy became the first true modern science, by way of supplanting Superstition with Logic. Glimpsing into the exquisite machinery of the universal clockwork with brand-new mechanical extensions to our senses (telescopes) and applying the principles which became the backbone of the Scientific Method, gave those early natural philosophers enough confidence that there was nothing in Creation which could remain hidden from Man’s comprehension forever; now the world we inhabit is the direct result of said confidence. By first mapping the charts of the heavens, we eventually ended up molding the face of the Earth.
And yet there remain portents and apparitions still haunting our skies, which have proven so unruly and resistant to reassuringly conventional explanations, they’ve become the biggest threat to our trust in the dominion of Reason; to the point that the vast edifice modern Science has erected since the days of Galileo could seemingly come crashing down, should its stewards were to merely entertain the existence of these visions, and grant a crumb of credence to those who have bared witness to them.‘Return to the age of chimeras haunting the nights of our forefathers? Never!’ Thus, the logical route taken by the stewards of this vital scaffolding is the path of denial and ridicule. A method which inevitably backfired in the most unsettling ways…
Psychedelic raconteur Terence McKenna (1946-2000) was someone who had as much respect for the arrogant orthodoxy of Academia as for the naive obtuseness of most UFO advocates, who simply cannot seem able to conceive the phenomenon outside the propositions reminiscent of some yellowing version of a 1950’s Sci-Fi novel. During his presentation titled ShamanicApproaches to the UFO, for the ‘Angels, Aliens & Archetypes’ conference held in San Francisco in November of 1987, aside from exploring alternative solutions to the origin of UFOs besides the hallowed ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis), he posited that what the phenomenon’s primordial task seemed to be, was neither charting the flora and fauna of our planet like some space-age version of Charles Darwin, nor establishing a foothold for an impending colonization fleet. What UFOs were really doing, in his eyes, was something far more subtle and pernicious: Eroding our faith in Science, and acting as an antidote to a scientific paradigm spawned by the ideas of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, which ultimately has brought us to the brink of total collapse [2]:
“Rationalism, scientific technology which began and came out of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages and the quite legitimate wish to glorify God through appreciation of His natural world turned into a kind of demonic pact, a kind of descent into the underworld, the Nekya, if you will, leading to the present cultural and political impasse that involves massive stockpiles of atomic weapons, huge propagandized populations cut off of any knowledge of their real histories, male-dominated organizations plying their message of lethal destruction and inevitable historical advance. And into this situation comes suddenly an anomaly, something which cannot be explained. I believe that is the purpose to the ufo: to inject uncertainty into the male-dominated, paternalistic, rational, solar myth under which we are suffering […] The ufo is nothing more than an assertion of herself by the Goddess into history, saying to science and paternalistically-governed and driven organizations “you have gone far enough! We are going to turn the world upside down. Your science is going to be shown up for what it is: nothing more than a pleasant metaphor, usefully extrapolated into the production of toys for wealthy children.”“
Had Robert Anton Wilson, Pope of Discordianism [3] –the philosophical movement centered around the exaltation of Chaos and Disorder over Conformity and Order– been seated among the audience that day, I imagine he would have risen up at that very moment shouting “Hail Eris!!”. In Greek mythology, Eris was the goddess of Discord, responsible according to some legends of the famous war of Troy, by giving the hero Paris a golden apple and instructing him to present it as a prize to “the most beautiful” among the female deities –a task impossible to have a happy resolution, given how the greek pantheon was famous for being carried out by the same base emotions as their human creatures… like vanity and jealousy. It almost feels as if the modern-age flying saucer is the newest version of Eris’s golden apple, thrown into the skies just to anger her cousin Athena, goddess of Wisdom and Philosophy. We mortals seem to be trapped inside a cosmic game whose rules and stakes we may never comprehend –yet that doesn’t mean we all can’t get a kick out of it, like Discordians do.
Just what is it about the UFO that makes it so revolting to the classical tenets of Science, anyway? I believe that ultimately the antagonism is more ideological than theoretical: If we disregard the usual refutations proposed by the inheritors of Carl Sagan’s legacy –i.e. The inconceivable gulfs between observable stellar islands, the massive amounts of energy required to traverse those empty oceans, and the sheer richness of the cosmic archipelago compounding to the irrelevance of our own little reef of the Milky Way– there remains the one element which ironically joins both believers and skeptics in their rejection of the high strangeness emanating from shunned close encounter accounts: The nonsensical, non-regimented nature of those alleged interactions, which can only be classified as Trickstery.
We’ve mentioned the 1950’s pulp fiction which helped popularize the stereotype of interstellar visitation during the postwar years, and even though some of those same publications also helped in disseminating the earliest sightings and the nascent flying saucer myths –i.e. The Shaver Mystery popularized by Ray Palmer, editor of Amazing Stories [4]– the record shows most ‘serious’ Sci-Fi authors of that era showed the utmost contempt for UFOs: Asimov, Clarke and Bradbury always scorned the phenomenon and paved the way for the modern atheist-based skeptic movement still championed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer.
But why would liberal freethinkers who tried to make a living out of conjuring tales of a universe pulsating with sentient life, made accessible through the same scientific ingenuity which helped defeat fascism in our own world, be so against the notion of non-human interlopers? Their rejections is better understood once we realize the modus operandi of these entities spat in the face of their rational vision of how interstellar ambassadors should conduct themselves when crossing our planetary borders. The cliched “take me to your leader” and the landing of a flying saucer on the White House lawn, was replaced by cardboard-tasting ‘pancakes’ given to a lonely chicken farmer in Wisconsin; and instead of gathering genetic samples from the most prominent members of our species, such as Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, these space veterinarians are instead relying on medieval methods to conduct husbandry with Brazilian farmers (Antonio Villas Boas), while also collecting sperm and ova from post office employees (Barney Hill), Christian housewives (Betty Andreasson) and terror novel writers (Whitley Strieber) to name a few of the most prominent –albeit socially unremarkable– abductees. These darn aliens will simply not follow the proper channels!
Furthermore, rather than hailing to our complicated, mathematically-coded salutes sent through the electromagnetic spectrum –which, we are constantly reminded, would be the logical way to conduct a productive exchange with a faraway, scientifically-advanced intelligence– this foreign influence appears to shun the need for expensive (read, exclusive) interfaces, and resort to tricksterish displays of arcane symbolism seemingly meant to bypass the waking mind, and subliminally affect the human Id in such a way, that it seeks to shake the consciousness off any previously-held orthodox preconceptions. One example of these symbolically-charged stagings is the eschatological visions Betty Andreasson was subjected to after she was taken by gray-like entities to what was seemingly another world [4]: An enormous, glowing eagle reduced to ash in phoenix-like fashion, reborn into a hideous gray worm. The oneiric quality of these fringe cases is what has driven many investigators to relegate them to the realm of dreams and nightmares; but is that the sensible thing to do when facing a phenomenon which constantly defies our boundaries of rationality?
Yet another example of the unorthodox semiology surrounding this mystery can be found in the controversial crop circles. Opinion is fiercely divided in the UFO community on whether the seasonal agro-glyphs appearing in the fields of England and other countries, are the result of direct non-human intervention or simply elaborated by anonymous (human) artists for various reasons. But even the few ‘croppies’ who have come forward –e.g. Matthew Williams, the only person ever convicted by British laws for making a circle [5]– allude to a high strangeness surrounding the formations; which implies even the man-made circles are the result of a ‘psychic’ (whatever the term means) collaboration between the artists and an undisclosed agency. The result of this covert collusion are the strikingly beautiful symbols and mandalas, which seem to employ geometry to impart lessons of a primordially spiritual nature, even though the angry owners of the fields in which they keep cropping up (no pun intended) regard them not as art or high forms of spiritual expression, but as pranks threatening their livelihood. Whatever the reason behind these transgressional formations, they are definitely NOT the prime number sets Sagan and his colleagues would expect to receive from a sensible civilization! [6] And perhaps therein lies the problem…
What keeps hard nosed UFO investigators awake at night isn’t that the records are ‘littered’ with numerous cases which defile a clean-cut ‘rational’ explanation with their unnecessary absurdity — poltergeist activity after a close encounter, cryptid sightings surrounding an alleged landing, cattle mutilations and bizarre apparition inside the infamous Skinwalker ranch property [7], synchronicities and precognition, etc. No, the truly unsettling thing is entertaining the possibility that these cases are not the outliers, but proof the phenomenon IS absurd by design!
Arthur C Clarke once wrote that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from Magic. Perhaps he forgot to consider how any sufficiently advanced mentality would equally be indistinguishable from Madness. In the search for the Other by which to gauge our own self, what we’re really hoping for is a mirror depiction of our own expectations, only slightly ahead of us that it may still be comprehensible; yet a truly alien mind should be, from our point of view and by the very definition of the word, crazy. The reflection would be like a twisted image spawned by a carnivalesque Hall of Mirrors; we gaze at our own peril, lest we’re not ready for the bizarre impression.
For there are cases which even the people open to the possibility of an alien presence in our world find deeply unsettling. The attacks suffered by the victims of Spring Heeled Jack in the XIXth century, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon of the 1930’s, the panicked teenagers pursued by Mothman in the 1960’s, and even the odd encounter Woodrow Derenberger had with an enigmatic individual who identified himself with the nonsensical name of Indrid Cold [8]: A seemingly innocuous human-looking being who wasn’t able to asway Derenberger’s understandable fear despite of showing a large smile on his face. Here we find yet another powerful right-brain symbol in the form of the grinning man archetype, which made its first literary appearance in Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs, and eventually morphed into the modern icon of Batman’s The Joker.
It’s not hard to make a case that, of all comic book characters emerged from the pages of pop culture, The Joker is by far the one powerful enough to actually cross into our reality. Paranormal investigator and cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, author of The Copycat Effect, has studied the effects of The Joker icon in real-life criminal cases, such as the Aurora mass shooting of 2012 [9]. James Eagan Holmes, the only perpetrator accused by the authorities for the crime, had dyed his hair red and purportedly called himself “The Joker” when he was finally detained by the police. In 2015 Holmes was given 12 consecutive life sentences, one for each individual he killed. Sadly, Coleman has records of more felonies allegedly inspired by the fictional killer clown in his online blog Twilight Language.
“I’m an agent of chaos,” The Joker –magnificently portrayed by the late Heath Ledger– confesses to a horribly disfigured Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) in one of the most iconic scenes in the film The Dark Knight [10]. In that regard, Batman’s maniacal nemesis might have more in common with the UFO phenomenon than we might dare to admit. The UFO mystery seems to stem from a liminal realm in between normal life and total madness. A twilight space where light and dark can give way to either our most wondrous fantasies… or our most horrible nightmares.
* * * *
“I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how, pathetic, their attempts to control things really are.”
Batman: The Dark Knight (2008)
The UFO disruption is not only a threat to the authority of scientific orthodoxy. It fundamentally defies every conceivable paradigm human society is built upon, in almost every discipline one can envision: Religion, economics, communication and state politics, to name but a few. The latter one being particularly vulnerable to an anomaly which almost seems to delight itself in displaying how pathetic our attempts to enforce human authority into an ostensibly superior force are. There’s no best example illustrating this than all the cases of rogue objects trespassing into nuclear silos, terrorizing the personnel in charge of safeguarding the most important link in the US national security chain of defense, and “adversely affecting” –to paraphrase retired Col. Charles Halt, key witness in the famous Rendlesham case [11]– the functionality of the atomic arsenal threatening human continuity in this biosphere.
Eschew the presentation of alien emissaries before US Congress or the UN Assembly. If contact is what’s been tried to be established by the UFO intelligence or intelligences, then clearly it is not a top-down type of contact meant to involve appointed representatives of government institutions (unconfirmed legends surrounding secret meetings between president Eisenhower and gray aliens notwithstanding). What the reports we’ve gathered tells us is far more egalitarian: A grass-roots type of contact involving individuals of every walks of life, which only seems to make sense if we accept 2 propositions: a)The intelligence(s) have little use for traditional social structure; and b) It or they are possibly not bound by the constraints of space and time the way we are. If time is no issue, then the best way to establish a dialogue with humankind is from an individual basis.
Of course, such an non-protocolary development would never sit well with governing authorities. The Robertson panel of 1953 –assembled out of the necessity to placate the public after numerous sightings over the US’s capital the year prior– came to the conclusion that reports of unidentified flying objects were themselves more threatening to the stability of the country than the actual (dubious, according to them) possibility of an extraterrestrial intervention. It recommended a smear campaign to minimize or ridicule close encounters in the press, and the monitoring of UFO groups for fear they could be easily manipulated by Soviet agents. The same approach was taken with self-proclaimed ‘contactees’: Individuals coming forth from every level of American society, claiming direct contact with the entities piloting the flying saucers, whom they fondly regarded as our ‘space brothers’. In his 2010 book Contactees [12], Nick Redfern writes how the most prominent figures in the Contactee movement (if it can be regarded as such) were closely watched by FBI operatives who attended their lectures and gave reports of what the speakers said to their audience. Imagine the consternation of J. Edgar Hoover when reading that George Adamski’s Venusian friends regarded Socialism as the most perfect form of human government! It is my opinion the Cosmic Love propagandized by the Contactees of the 1950’s paved the way to the Free Love counterculture of the 1960’s, and the governmental authorities viewed both grassroots movements in the same manner: As a threat, graver and more insidious than an open conflagration with the Communist block.
Apropos, what of the other side of the former Iron Curtain? Most historians would agree in naming the fall of the Berlin Wall (which started in June 13th of 1990) as marking the beginning of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Whereas my own personal calendar identifies September 21st, 1989 as the true date when the winds of change started blowing. This date corresponds with the commencement of remarkable UFO activity in the small city of Voronezh, involving the apparent landing of craft, sightings of enormous humanoid creatures, terrifying interactions with local boys, and more astounding accounts which would have made even the most trashy pulp fiction writer of the 1950’s blush before submitting such story to its publisher [13]; a remarkable case in the modern annals of UFOlogy, moreso for the fact it was able to trespass the traditional layers of censorship installed by the Kremlin decades ago which used to stop UFO accounts dead in their tracks –a reason why for many decades the imbalance gave the phenomenon the impression of being exclusive to Western nations; the dissemination of the Voronezh case is thus another testament to Gorbachev’s Perestroika reforms. Empires bloom and crumb to dust, and yet the mystery of the UFO lingers still; but the fact that a once-mighty empire was willing to acknowledge its powerlessness over a mysterious, outside influence is truly remarkable.
That which is a nuisance to the governing authority becomes appealing to those with a distaste for orders and regulation, and the unruliness of UFOs seems to stir something in the core of the most marginalized layers of society. This is by no means a modern trend! In his seminal book Passport to Magonia [14], Jacques Vallee puts this into perspective:
“Celestial phenomena seem to have been so commonplace in the Japanese skies during the Middle Ages that they influenced human events in a direct way. Panics, riots and disruptive social movements were often linked to celestial apparitions. The Japanese peasants had the disagreeable tendency to interpret the “signs from heaven” as strong indications that their revolts and demands against the feudal system or against foreign invaders were just, and as assurance that their rebellions would be crowned with success.”
Rebellion, revolt, and social unrest. I first mused about their possible link with UFOs in the summer of 2011 [15], when the streets of London were besieged by riots which had originally erupted in Tottenham. It was in that time that Mike Sewell, one of BBC Radio 5’s sports reporter begrudgingly made public his own sighting of a large disc-shaped object on the morning of August 4th, while he was driving to Stansted airport. Looking at the distance between these two locations in London through applications like Google Maps yields out a relative proximity, but finding a direct correlation between UFO activity and social unrest in the same geographical area throughout history is a tricky proposition at best. In his entry on ‘UFO waves’ for The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters [16], Martin S. Kottmeyer points out to the high levels of UFO activity in the United States, coinciding with times of deep disturbances in American society during the mid-1960’s, as possible indicators to the validity of the ‘Paranoia Theory’ as a psychological explanation to the UFO phenomenon. The paranoia theory extrapolates from the work of behavioral psychologists like Dr. Norman Cameron of the University of Wisconsin, and interprets UFOs as a form of ‘paranoid ideation’, possibly triggered by moments of ‘deep national shame and humiliation’. While the anti-war protests and the Watt riots occurring simultaneously with the UFO wave of 1965 seems to fit the bill, other periods of social instability and general anxiety won’t align so easily to this theory, such as the low level of UFO activity registered by Blue Book during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Still, given how several countries famous for their high levels of UFO activity in past decades, also suffered periods of social repression and political authoritarianism –e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, etc– looking for a possible link between this non-terrestrial phenomenon and episodes of earthly unrest is not without appeal. Of course, if an statistical and reliable link were to be corroborated, and we eschew the simplistic interpretation of UFOs as psychological delusions brought upon by mass hysteria, we’d still be left with the insurmountable task of finding an explanation for the activity, not unlike the metaphorical ‘chicken and the egg’ conundrum: Are UFOs somehow attracted to manifestations pursuing or conducive to profound social change, or is the phenomenon directly or indirectly responsible for such events?
Investigators like Mack Maloney [17] have written extensively about the proliferation of UFO sightings during times of war, and yet extrapolating further than what the reports inform us of –i.e. that strange unconventional activity has often been observed in the theater of war throughout history– propels us to speculate whether the UFOs are merely observing our exploits of tribal combat as dispassionate witnesses, or if they are somehow intervening in the balance of those battles, the way Homer depicted it in his narration of the classic war which would give reference to all human conflagrations past, present and future –the Iliad. Do these entities give enough of a damn about the welfare and prospect of our species, that they feel the need to foster the erosion and upending of stagnant structures of power from time to time?
Or, are they just delighted in inspiring mischief in our world for their own personal and inscrutable bemusement?
We’ve briefly explored periods of externalized turmoil, but what about internalized turmoil? Delving into the problem of UFOs one must eventually approach it from the point of view of human perception: its limitations and susceptibility through different factors, which can either distort, numb or sometimes even enhance it according to the given circumstances and particulars of the individual. Seriah Azkath, host of the weekly radio show Where Did the Road Go? [18] which delves with all sorts of fringe and paranormal topics, has personally experienced a high degree of strangeness bumping into his daily life, which has left him with more questions than answers –along with a passion to pursue this topic from unconventional perspectives: One of those experiences happened back in the year 2000 when he was driving to his radio station one night at around 11 pm, and he observed what seemed to be a gigantic, brightly-lit object hovering over Cayuga lake (New York) [19], He pulled over and rolled down the window, yet despite its apparent massiveness the object was completely silent. The eerie encounter stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun, once the bright lights dropped below the tree line and were out of sight. Seriah asked around and searched for UFO reports the next day but to this day he seems to have been the sole witness of this close encounter, which might be explained by the sparse population around that area and how late it was.
Years later, when author and researcher Mike Clelland [20] astutely asked about his particular state of mind around that time, Seriah conceded his life was “a complete chaos” back then, going through several upsetting changes and developments. Which raises the question on whether his internal mood was an influential factor conducive to the sighting, and also makes one wonder if an hypothetical passenger riding with him would have been able to perceive the same thing… if anything at all.
Are UFOs then akin to ‘crisis apparitions’ or poltergeist activity, which parapsychologists have tried to link to the unruly ‘psychic’ energy unconsciously released by troubled pubescent children? Paranormal researchers have sought for a ‘Unified Theory’ capable of linking disparaging phenomena which some suspect have more in common than we’d care to realize in the past –PSI, ghostly manifestations, cryptid sightings and UFO encounters. While many still find such propositions absurd and do all they can to keep their UFOlogical peas from touching their Cryptozoology carrots or phantasmagorical potatoes in their paranormal plate, others have come to the realization that Consciousness plays a significant role in all of these phenomena: In all these manifestations, whatever the triggering input (internal, external or a convoluted combination of both) it is a human consciousness that which is perceiving said input and parsing it through a particular ‘cultural filter’; and while geographical location and chronological factors will surely play a role in the precipitation of UFO encounters, proposing that some individuals seem more ‘sensitive’ or ‘attractive’ to such anomalies (even if only transitorily due to temporal circumstances) seems not that unreasonable –at least not in the ‘shadowy’, un-rigid logic followed by these phenomena…
Internal turmoil and lack of rigidity are not just the earmarks of adolescence. They are also intrinsic to the creativity-prone, which is possibly the reason why artistic types tend to show a higher interest in the UFO phenomenon than people who choose a more conventional (read ‘conformist’) lifestyle; or at least, they are more outspoken about it. From John Lennon’s famous observation of a UFO over New York on August 23rd, 1974 [21]–and let’s not forget Lennon had let Yoko Ono and was staying with his secretary-turned-lover May Pang, as possible indication of his state of mind at the time– to David Bowie’s reported sightings and life-long interest in extraterrestrial life and mysticism, it not only hints to the allure the subject has in people with iconoclastic tendencies, but it also gives reason to speculate how such attitudes might yield a better understanding of the phenomenon, than those who observe it from a more fixed paradigm. Consider Bowie’s acute hindsight about a sighting he had while traveling through the English countryside with a friend [22]:
“I believe that what I saw was not the actual object, but a projection of my own mind trying to make sense of this quantum topological doorway into dimensions beyond our own. It’s as if our dimension is but one among an infinite number of others.”
A finer, more elegant, and more sophisticated explanation to this mind-boggling mystery, I feel, than of those who are certain these craft hail from Zeta Reticuli II!
* * * *
“Noise is relative to the silence preceding it. The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta.
In his case to show the modern UFO phenomenon as being the same as the belief in the Faerie realm from Old Europe, or other folkloric customs around the world –only now clothed with the appropriate veneer of space visitation suited for XXth-century sensibilities– Vallee reminds us of how interaction with non-human intelligences has always been dissuaded by the Status Quo…to the point of even using the penalty of death as the ultimate deterrent, stereotypically portrayed by the efigie of the witch’s pyre. The result of this suppression was to force this body of knowledge to find refuge underground, spawning Hermeticism in the Middle Ages. In seeking communion with these entities, one can delineate a tradition beginning with alchemists Facius Cardan and Paracelsus, going all the way to the George Adamski and the Contactees from the ‘golden age’ of the modern flying saucer era; many modern students of the phenomenon would agree in pointing Aleister Crowley as a bridge between the early alchemists summoning sylphs with arcane rituals, and the common citizens who claimed to be ambassadors of the Space Brothers. Indeed, Crowley sought conference with metaphysical beings through various –and somewhat deviant– means, and claimed to have succeeded. One of those beings is popularly identified with the monosyllabic name of ‘Lam’, and while Crowley’s pictorial depiction of it is interpreted as some as a psychic self-portrait [23], others find a striking resemblance with the modern stereotype of the Gray alien, as firstly proposed by Fortean blogger and author Richelle Hawks [24]. Another ‘transmundane’ entity Crowley purportedly contacted was Aiwass, who passed along the anarchic commandment on which the law of Thelema was structured upon: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
What does “Do what thou wilt” really mean, anyway? According to students of Thelema, Crowley didn’t simply mean to satisfy one’s petty whims and voluptuous desires, but finding one’s true path or purpose in life, the “true will” or higher purpose. In children’s literature The magical land of do-as-you-please –which you can get there if you befriend denizens of the fairy-kind, according to British author Enid Blyton in her book series The Faraway Tree– inspired comic book writer and Chaos magician Alan Moore when he created his own treatise on modern anarchy, ‘V for Vendetta’, probably the most influential piece of popular culture in the last three decades [25]; a testament to its relevance is simply the ubiquitousness of Guy Fawkes’s smirking facade in any kind of modern civil protest to date –the grinning man archetype emerges again.
V, the superhuman terrorist hell bent on overthrowing the fascistic regime ruling over a disturbingly familiar dystopian England, explains to secondary character Evey how do-as-you-please needs not to be interpreted in the same violent manner embraced by the Manson family, when they slit the throat of the 60’s psychedelic revolution to the tune of Helter Skelter. “Anarchy,” V corrects, means “without leaders, not without order.” True order, for Moore, comes from voluntarily accepting personal boundaries, without the need of a regulatory body imposing any limitations upon individuals.
But Anarchy, according to Moore, must be preceded by a chaotic stage in which all the obsolete structures upholding the Status Quo must be disrupted and obliterated. Those structures can be either tangible symbols, as in the case of the Old Parliament building destroyed by V in Moore’s graphic novel, or abstract ones like the respectability and trust in mainstream media.
After the Condon Report, issued by the University of Colorado, gave the US Air Force the long-sought justification to stop paying public attention to the UFO phenomenon, the press was also given permission to no longer take the issue seriously –a process that had already started with the Robertson panel, as we already established. Ironically, the giggle factor imposed by mainstream media on the topic, is one of the reasons why newspapers and TV news have become almost irrelevant in the XXIst century. The early Internet bloomed with online forums and chat rooms devoted to fringe topics never discussed by traditional media –like alien abductions, Area 51 and the assassination of JFK– and has now turned into the preferred medium by which Millennials absorb the news. The veneer of officialdom is no longer a valuable asset in an era when lack of confidence in official channels has become almost second nature to the populace; much to the contrary, the smear campaign adopted by traditional journalism on fringe topics has completely backfired, and brought upon a rejection from an ever-increasing portion of a distrusting public, whose rationale goes: “If they have lied to us for so long about something as transcendent as an alien presence in our midst –a presence which might be involved in the kidnapping of hapless citizens from inside their homes, for reasons we can only speculate about– then why should we trust them on ANYTHING at all?”
In a post-X Files age when pop culture needs not remind us that “government denies knowledge”, it’s the 3 Lone Gunmen, incarnated in a thousand alt-news blogs and websites, the ones who get the last laugh… or a White House job.
In such an upside-down state of affairs, what should we say about some UFOlogists’s obsessive appeal for ‘Disclosure’, interpreted as a global movement in which official governments finally acknowledge the non-mundane nature of UFOs [26]? Truly it would seem that as we observe the events unfolding on the second decade of the XXIst century, that the eventual disappearance of the Nation/State as we currently know it, seems a more likely scenario than expecting those entities to recognize an anomaly over which they have no control whatsoever; an anomaly which refuses to conform to our ‘sensible’ expectations and seems hell bent on putting everything we take for granted into question –even the nature of Reality itself.
Preposterous? It would have been equally preposterous to suggest, in the 1970s, that the mighty Soviet Union would come crashing down in less than 2 decades. It was also preposterous to think the British citizens will vote to leave the European union, or that the American people would choose to elect a former reality TV celebrity to the highest office in the Free World. Empires bloom and crumb to dust, and yet the mystery of the UFO lingers still –for it perhaps is not a puzzle meant to be unlocked by an amorphous consensus, but confronted and dealt with by each and every one of us, when the proper time comes.
When will UFOlogy stop yearning to gain official respectability, dare we ask? It seems as a foolhardy and hopeless pursuit, as expecting street graffiti to one day be accepted as a fine art expression by ivory-towered academicians. Not because there is always the occasional Banksy who serve as an exception confirming the rule, but because it is precisely the TRANSGRESSIONAL nature of these counterculture forces that which endows them with their true power. For if History teaches us anything, is that the most effective way to shape a society without disrupting it entirely is not from the inside, but from the outside.
Change the Consciousness, and the Culture will follow.
Vallee saw in the UFO phenomenon a cultural thermostat occasionally nudging human affairs to a given, unforeseeable outcome. My rebellious nature prefers to regard it as a chaotic catalyst, ever turning human society up on its toes with its farcical displays of power. From an alchemical perspective, perhaps what this catalyst seems to be seeking is to propitiate an appropriate state of Nigredo [27], a necessary stage of general decomposition which must be followed through, if one is to reach the desired outcome of Albedo, in which the Great Work is complete and the final transmutation of crude matter into divine substance is finally achieved.
Observed in such a way, perhaps the confounding trickstery of these ‘Cosmic Jokers’ is meant to wake us out of our collective stagnation, and force us to see a way out of our ‘dark (k)night of the soul’ into a sunnier morrow.
…Maybe.
For even if there’s no humanly comprehensible solution to this mystery. It doesn’t mean one can’t utilize these ultimate symbols of anarchy –which even dare to defy the law of Gravity— for personal empowerment. I myself have successfully turned my long-life obsession in UFOs into my personal Alchemy, encouraging me to pursue questions I know fully well are devoid of easy answers, and grow both intellectually and spiritually for it. To assume one is certain of the phenomenon’s true origins and intentions at this stage is beyond arrogant –it is childishly naive. But if there’s one thing I’m certain about all of it, is this: If you let your curiosity guide you through uncharted territories seeking not fame, nor selfish gain or dulling self-reaffirmation; if you seek NOT to conform to other people’s facile theories and answers, then I guarantee you this passion will propel your life into a journey of childlike wonder for which there is no turning back.
That the journey is not without perils is a given, for no quest worth undertaking is devoid of them. John Keel used to warn parents not to let their children be interested in UFOs, since he saw in it a realm full of deceiving monsters threatening to drive even the most down-to-earth people insane.
But catalysts are, by definition, meant to boost what’s already in the solution. If LSD has the potential to give the world the gift of a Ram Dass or a Steve Jobs, it can also spawn a Charles Manson –Same substance, different outcomes.
Thus I say to you that, with any luck, not only may the UFO catalyst turn you utterly mad, but entirelybonkers. Yet as Alice told me a long time ago, the best people in this world are usually labelled as such, by those who haven’t the spine to imagine they can actually change it –It’s easy if you only try, I’m told…
Solve et Coagula, fellow anarchist. And FUCK ‘EM ALL!
“Are you ready? Are you ready to jump right off the edge of everything?” ― Grant Morrison, The Invisibles, Vol. 3: Entropy in the U.K.
REFERENCES
[1] Episode 3 – “Harmony of the Worlds.” Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Television Series, By Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (1980)
[2] The Terence McKenna Wiki: Shamanic Approaches to the UFO. Angels, Aliens and Archetypes 1987 Conference, San Francisco, California (November 21, 1987) | terencemckenna.wikispaces.com/Shamanic+Approaches+to+the+UFO
Also see: https://youtu.be/22F6pZU_PC8
[3] From Operation Mindf**k to the White Room: The Strange Discordian Journey of the KLF, By J.M.R. Higgs. Darklore Vol. 7, Daily Grail Publishing (2012) | dailygrail.com/Guest-Articles/2013/5/The-Strange-Journey-the-KLF
[4] The Andreasson Affair, By Raymond Fowler. Prentice Hall, New York (1979)
[5] Grimerica Talks to Crop Circle Maker Matthew Williams (November 28, 2014). The Grimerica Podcast | www.grimerica.ca/williams
[6] Episode 12 – “Encyclopaedia Galactica.” Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Television Series, By Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan (1980)
Also see Contact, Directed By Robert Zemeckis, Starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. Warner Brothers (1997)
[7] Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah, By Colm A. Kelleher Ph.D and George Knapp. Paraview Pocket Books (2005)
[8] The Mothman Prophecies, By John A. Keel, Panther Books (1975)
[9] Red Dawn Again, By Loren Coleman (2012) | copycateffect.blogspot.com/2012/07/red-dawn-again
[10] Batman: The Dark Knight, Directed By Christopher Nolan, Starring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. Warner Brothers, Legendary Entertainment (2008)
[11] Left at East Gate: A First-Hand Account of the Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident, Its Cover-Up and Investigation, By Larry Warren and Peter Robbins. Da Capo Press; 1st Edition (1997)
[12] Contactees: A History of Alien-Human Interaction, By Nick Redfern. New Page Books (2010)
[13] UFOs & the National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed (1973-1991), By Richard M. Dolan, Keyhole Publishing Company (2009)
[14] Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers, By Jacques Vallee. Re-Edition By Daily Grail Publishing (2014)
[15] Portents & Politics: UFO Apparitions Connected to Social Disturbances? By Red Pill Junkie (2011) | http://dailygrail.com/blogs/red-pill-junkie/2011/8/Portents-Politics-UFO-Apparitions-Connected-Social-Disturbances
[16] The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters, Edited By Ronald D. Story. Robinson (2001)
[17] UFOs in Wartime: What They Didn’t Want You to Know, By Mack Maloney. Berkley; Original Edition (2011)
[18] Where Did the Road Go? Radio Show. Live on WVBR Every Saturday at 11 PM Eastern | wheredidtheroadgo.com
[19] Seriah Azkath – Broadcaster of the New Aeon (March 29, 2016). Radio Misterioso Podcast | radiomisterioso.com/2016/03/29/seriah-azkath-broadcaster-of-the-new-aeon/
[20] Hidden Experience, By Mike Clelland | hiddenexperience.blogspot.com
[21] That Time John Lennon Spotted a UFO in New York, By Dave Lifton (2015) | ultimateclassicrock.com/john-lennon-ufo/
[22] David Bowie, UFOs, Witchcraft, Cocaine and Paranoia, By Timothy Green Beckley (2010) | http://ufodigest.com/article/david-bowie-ufos-witchcraft-cocaine-and-paranoia
[23] Lam I Am, By Gary Johnson (2012). Aleister Crowley 2012 | https://ac2012.com/2012/10/20/lam-i-am/
[24] Yabba Dabble Doo: How Aleister Crowley Introduced the Iconic Gray Alien, By Richelle Hawks (2007) | http://www.ufodigest.com/news/1107/dabbledoo.html
[25] V for Vendetta, By Alan Moore and David Lloyd. DC Comics (1988)
[26] A.D., After Disclosure: When the Government Finally Reveals the Truth about Alien Contact, By Richard M. Dolan and Bryce Zabel. New Page Books; 1st Edition (2012)
Artist’s concept of the Stardust spacecraft flying by Comet 81P/Wild. Credit: NASA/JPL
More samples of comets are urgently required to better understand the early history of the solar system, say researchers analyzing comet dust brought back to Earth by NASA's Stardust mission in 2006.
The dust particles are from Comet 81P/Wild (also known as Wild 2) and date to the beginning of the solar system, containing clues about its earliest history.
"The future of Stardust science", which is a paper published in June 2017 in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, summarizes the roughly 150 scientific publications based on Stardust science. It makes an important point about the limits of our knowledge of the early protosolar disk of gas and dust from which the solar system formed. That is, Wild 2 and other Kuiper Belt comets – those originating from beyond the orbit of Neptune – are poorly represented in our samples of extraterrestrial material.
In contrast, asteroids are represented in our collections by meteorites and have been well documented for over a century, while the Moon's material has been collected and brought to scientists for analysis by the Apollo astronauts.
Andrew Westphal, a senior member of the Stardust team and an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, urged investigators to seek out more Kuiper Belt material to study on Earth because of its unique origins.
A view of Stardust’s sample-return capsule after it successfully touched back down on Earth, under parachute, in 2006. Credit: NASA
"As you sample farther and farther out in the solar system, you sample material that is more and more primitive," says Westphal, the lead author of the paper. "Particularly when you get a sample from a comet, you get a sample [that has been] in deep freeze for 4.6 billion years."
Approximately 10 percent of a typical Kuiper Belt comet is unaltered interstellar material. Some of this material consists of pre-solar grains – circumstellar dust grains condensed in the outflows (emissions) of other stars long before the solar system formed. Most of the interstellar material, however, probably formed in the interstellar medium.
Little information on water
Determining whether liquid water was ever present within Wild 2 is also an important goal of comet investigators. Astronomical evidence shows that cometary water may have variable deuterium to hydrogen (D to H) ratios, and that the average ratio differs from that of water on Earth. A famous example of this is Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, which was studied up close by the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission from 2014 to 2016. Other cometary D to H ratios have been measured by ground-based telescopes.
If comets have different D to H ratios in their water than Earth's water, this likely means that comets did not deliver the majority of water to Earth's surface. Instead, investigators speculate it was asteroids that brought the water, but more study is needed of both asteroids and comets to help confirm the hypothesis.
A potential interstellar dust track (circled) in Stardust’s aerogel collector.
Credit: UC Berkeley/Andrew Westphal
Unfortunately for Stardust investigators, no "volatiles" – which are molecules with low boiling points, such as water – survived slamming into the spacecraft's aerogel and aluminum foil collector at 6.1 kilometers per second (3.8 miles per second, or 13,680 miles per hour). That situation has made it challenging to advance the science on cometary D to H ratios.
"The rocks survived, but no water was preserved," says Westphal. "Some rare organics, however, did preserve their D/H ratios."
The investigators also looked for phyllosilicates, which are clays that preserve water inside of them, but to date studies of particles collected by Stardust has not yielded any phyllosilicates.
There may be another opportunity to study the material from a comet. NASA's proposed Comet Rendezvous, Sample Acquisition, Investigation, and Return (CORSAIR) mission is designed to collect materials, including organics, from Comet 88P/Howell, which could offer more implications for astrobiology. If the mission is approved, those samples would return to Earth in the 2030s.
Advanced (Possibly Extraterrestrial) German Technology From Before WW2
Advanced (Possibly Extraterrestrial) German Technology From Before WW2
(Arjun Walia)“A German newspaper recently published an interview with George Klein, famous German engineer and aircraft expert, describing the experimental construction of ‘flying saucers’ carried out by him from 1941 to 1945.”
Exotic technology has been around for a long time, and so have the agencies within the Department of Defense that use it. Just imagine what type of technology the NSA — an intelligence agency whose existence was denied until the mid-1960s — was using in the 1950s. Then there’s the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years. Secret technologies have been wrapped up in the Black Budget and Special Access Programs (SAPs) for years, and many of these SAPS remain unacknowledged by anybody within the government. They’re exempt from standard reporting requirements to Congress.
“It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction, when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy, when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects about which both the Congress and the Commander in Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.”
When it comes to exotic aerial technology, there is no shortage of information. For examine, in the mid-1920s, Townsend Brown discovered that gravitational mass and electric charge are coupled. He found that when a capacitor is charged to a high voltage, it moves toward its positive pole. This became known as the “Biefeld-Brown” effect, which, like many new concepts today that challenge longheld belief systems (that then become scientific dogma), was opposed by conventional-minded physicists of his time.
As Theodore C. Loder, a Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, states:
The Pearl Harbor Demonstration. Around 1953, Brown conducted a demonstration for military top brass. He flew a pair of 3-foot diameter discs around a 50-foot course tethered to a central pole. Energized with 150,000 volts and emitting ions from their leading edge, they attained speeds of several hundred miles per hour. The subject was thereafter classified. Project Winterhaven. Brown submitted a proposal to the Pentagon for the development of a Mach 3 disc shaped electrogravitic fighter craft. Drawings of its basic design are shown in one of his patents. They are essentially large-scale versions of his tethered test discs.
German Flying Saucers
Here is an authentic image/story of a large UFO hovering over L.A., which was witnessed by 1 million people. Dubbed the “Battle of Los Angeles,” it was an event that showed us how the U.S. military was learning to lie about UFOs, five years prior to the Roswell Incident.
During World War Two, multiple strange sightings occurred, of disc-shaped objects travelling at incomprehensible speeds. When the Associated Press and New York Times covered the topic in 1945, they speculated the objects might be a new form of German weaponry.
There is no shortage of strange documents in the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) electronic reading room. Many reveal the agency’s efforts to keep tabs on the technological developments of other countries, especially during and after World War II.
One document brings up a famous German engineer named Georg Klein, who, as the document states, expressed that “though many people believe the ‘flying saucers’ to be a postwar development, they were actually in the planning stage in German aircraft factories as early as 1941.”
The document then goes on to mention an experiment described by Klein:
“The “flying saucer” reached an altitude of 12,400 meters within 3 minutes and a speed of 2,200 kilometers per hour. Klein emphasized that in accordance with German plans, the speed of these “saucers” would reach 4,000 kilometers per hour. One difficulty, according to Klein, was the problem of obtaining the materials to be used for the construction of the “saucers,” but even this had been solved by German engineers toward the end of 1945, and construction on the objects was scheduled to begin, Klein added.
Three Different Models
According to Klein, by 1944 the Germans had already built three saucers for testing. Were these the “foo” fighters all of these American pilots were reporting?
One type actually had the shape of a disc, with an interior cabin, and was built at the (unidentified) factories, which had also built the V2 rockets. This model was 42 meters in diameter. The other model had the shape of a ring, with raised sides and a spherically shaped pilot’s cabin placed on the outside, in the center of the ring . . . [and] both models had the ability to take off vertically and to land in an extremely restricted area, like helicopters.
The engineers were ordered to destroy these saucers, including all of the plans for them.
“The engineers at the Mite factories in Breslau, however, were not warned in sufficient time of the Soviet approach, and the Soviets, therefore, succeeded in seizing their material. Plans, as well as specialized personnel, were immediately sent directly to the Soviet Union under heavy guard.”
German Saucer Technology Has Been in the Lore for a Long Time
Aviation writer Nick Cook is one of many to have investigated this topic, and in 2002 he came to the conclusion that the Nazis had experimented “with a form of science the rest of the world had never remotely considered” and which continues to be suppressed today.
It makes you wonder what the United States received given that, through Operation Paperclip, a number of top German scientists were transported to the United States.
“[Italian researcher] Renato Vesco argued that Germans had developed antigravity. Disc-shaped and tubular craft were built and tested near the end of the Second World War, which, he argued, was the proper explanation of foo fighters. These concepts, he maintained, were developed by the Americans and Soviets and led directly to flying saucers.”
Another researcher Joseph P, Farrell, a professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkely, believes that some of the Nazi’s developments were
A means to tap into zero-point energy, or to phrase it differently, the energy of the physical medium of space-time itself
As a means to manipulate gravity itself, i.e. as an advanced prototypical field propulsion technology; and,
As a means to the ultimate, potentially planet-busting, weapons
Former head of the CIA Roscoe Hilenkoetter put it best in 1960 when he told the nation that “behind the scenes, high ranking air force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.” (source)
“Oh yes we discuss it at every conference that we had with the military, and they never were able to make me a concrete report on it. . . . There’s always things like that going on, flying saucers and they’ve had other things, you know.”
I’ve been researching the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon for more than two decades now, and the more I do, the more I realize just how little I know, and how much information is out there that I have yet to examine. What I have learned, from documents like the one above, is that many of these crafts are most likely manmade, by our own agencies.
That being said, although UFOs are now officially verified, this wasn’t so just a few years ago. Just as there was evidence for the UFO phenomenon when it was ridiculed, so too does the extraterrestrial hypothesis have plenty of evidence to back it up, despite not being accepted by the mainstream yet.
I’ve covered why I believe so in many of my articles, most of which you can find in the exopolitics section of our website.
I’ll leave you with a couple of my favourite quotes.
“It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.”
– Hermann Oberth , the founding father of rocketry and astronautics
There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time.”
– Dr. Brian O’Leary, former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor (source)
About the Author
Extraterrestrial Technology and the World War Two Agenda. Picture Advanced tanks such as the Panther were deadly in battle
Arjun Walia: I joined the CE team in 2010 shortly after finishing university and have been grateful for the fact that I have been able to do this ever since There are many things happening on the planet that don’t resonate with me, and I wanted to do what I could to play a role in creating change. It’s been great making changes in my own life and creating awareness and I look forward to more projects that move beyond awareness and into action and implementation. So stay tuned arjun@collective-evolution.com
A small capsule containing dust from the asteroid Itokawa touched down in June 2010 at the Woomera test range in the Australian Outback. Launched in May 2003, Hayabusa suffered a host of technical problems.
Credit: A. Ikeshita/MEF/ISAS
Hayabusa was a Japanese spacecraft that brought back a sample of asteroid material to Earth in 2010, after a mission riddled with technical glitches. The spacecraft touched down on a small near-Earth asteroid called 25143 Itokawa and safely brought back minute rocky particles for analysis.
The success of the mission inspired a successor spacecraft, called Hayabusa 2. This spacecraft is on its way to asteroid 162173 Ryugu and is expected to arrive in July 2018. Asteroid samples will be returned to Earth in December 2020.
Mission development and history
Plans for an asteroid-sampling mission actually predate the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), founded in 2003. A predecessor agency, called the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (which today, is a part of JAXA) created a sample and return targeting mission that was planned for the 1990s, according to JAXA. The mission would have visited the asteroid 1943 Anteros. ISAS, however, ultimately decided not to proceed because its scientists concluded the technology was not ready yet.
In the mid-1990s, ISAS developed a sample return mission called MUSES-C (or Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft). Its primary target was considered the asteroid 4660 Nereus, and its backup target was another asteroid called 1989 ML. Delays in MUSES-C's launch (due to a rocket failure) ultimately pushed both targets out of reach, so mission planners chose asteroid 162173 Ryugu as the target.
MUSES-C launched on May 9, 2003, and was renamed Hayabusa ("falcon") shortly after its launch. A solar flare en route damaged its solar cells, which in turned affected the efficiency of the ion engine, according to Gizmodo. The spacecraft performed a flyby of Earth on May 19, 2004, to gain speed for its long voyage. The spacecraft then arrived at 25143 Itokawa on Sept. 12 (three months later than planned, due to its ion engine troubles) and sent back high-resolution images of the asteroid back to Earth.
The shadow of Hayabusa, along with a target marker (circled, at left), is shown on asteroid Itokawa in November 2005.
Credit: JAXA
In early November, JAXA announced that Hayabusa would do a practice descent on Nov. 4, but the attempt was later aborted because of difficulties finding a landing site. Then the spacecraft attempted to send a small probe called MINERVA to the surface on Nov. 12. MINERVA, an acronym for MIcro/Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid, was a 1.3-lb. (half a kilogram) test lander that was supposed to hop from location to location, taking pictures of the surface. The little lander, however, drifted away from the Hayabusa spacecraft into space — never reaching its intended target.
Hayabusa also attempted to fire a probe at the surface and gather the dust it produced, but that experiment also failed. Ultimately, Hayabusa touched down on the asteroid surface twice in late November, but on both occasions it went into safe mode and it was unclear whether it gathered any material while it was on the surface.
"Problems with frozen pipes, leaking fuel, and communications glitches caused even more consternation as the spacecraft attempted to depart the asteroid," Gizmodo added. "By the time the return capsule was headed back to Earth, only two of four ion engines and seven of 11 batteries were working; another ion engine automatically shut down partway through the journey home. By re-entry, the reaction control system was no longer functional."
Re-entry back to Earth also wasn't smooth, to say the least; Hayabusa broke up when it entered Earth's atmosphere on June 13, 2005. Luckily for investigators, dust was collected at the asteroid and it did survive the perilous re-entry; the sample return capsule was picked up from Australia and flown to Japan for investigation.
Microscopic views of an asteroid sample collected by Japan's Hayabusa probe show tiny bits of grain that have adhered to it from impacting meteorites.
Credit: PNAS
Hayabusa's findings
In November 2010, JAXA said it had collected 1,500 grains that "were identified as rocky particles"; most of them were thought to come from "extraterrestrial origin" (meaning, the asteroid). JAXA had known beforehand that the particles of material were there, but it took several months of analysis to confirm they were not contamination from Earth or from Hayabusa's voyage.
In the initial results, JAXA announced it found minerals such as olivine and pyroxene, which are common on Earth and have been found on the moon and Mars. The particles were tiny, just one-tenth the width of a human hair (10 micrometers in size). Several articles on Hayabusa's dust collection appeared in the Aug. 26, 2011, issue of Science; among the findings was confirmation that the dust on 25143 Itokawa was identical to material on an LL chondrite type of meteorite. This finding confirmed showed link between meteorites and asteroids.
One of the more interesting findings has to do with submicrometer craters on the surface of the particles. Some of the earlier results showed one to two craters on individual particles, while a September 2016 update reported one particle had 15 individual craters. This particle's craters were "formed by fragments produced by the impact process of a tiny celestial body on the surface of asteroid Itokawa," JAXA reported.
Latest on Hayabusa: Troubled Sample-Return Mission
Satellite Tracker Map: How to Spot China's Falling Space Station, Hubble & More
Satellite Tracker Map: How to Spot China's Falling Space Station, Hubble & More
By SPACE.com Staff
Here's how to pinpoint the China's falling space station Tiangong-1, International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope and other satellites in the sky above you with this satellite tracker powered by N2YO. The tracker should appear just below if Javascript is enabled. Click the Tiangong-1 button to see where the space station is at any time. [How to Spot Satellites: An Observer's Guide]
This artist's illustration from a China space agency video shows the Tiangong 1 space laboratory, a prototype module for the country's planned space station.
China's first space station. It was put into space in a single launch in 2011. It was then visited three times by spacecraft, including two missions with taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) on board. The last mission was in 2013, and the station is falling from space. It is expected to fall to Earth around April 1. Here's everything you need to know about China's falling space station.
The longest-serving space station ever, the International Space Station was constructed by astronauts starting in 1998, and has been continuously occupied since November 2000. Most astronauts live there for six months at a time, studying the health effects of long-term missions in space.
A famous space telescope that helped scientists find evidence the universe was accelerating in its expansion, and narrowed down the age of the universe. This instrument was launched in 1990 and was serviced across four space shuttle missions.
A long-serving satellite that gathers data on the Earth's changing climate, it was launched in 1999 and helped improve climate information for cloud height and albedo (reflected sunlight). It also tracks fast-changing events such as fires or severe storms.
KMS 4 ~ Art Acrylic Pour with Floetrol and Silicone & Push Pin feet.
An Earth-observation satellite from North Korea. Due to that country's nuclear aspirations, the February 2016 launch has come under international scrutiny and in some cases, criticism.
This weather satellite, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), launched in 1998. Its instruments track climate factors such as atmosphere, cloud cover, ozone and sea surface temperature.
Figure 1: Illustration of the Aqua satellite (image credit: NASA)
The Aqua mission looks at the movement of water around the Earth, including processes such as precipitation, soil moisture and sea ice. It can also monitor vegetation cover and aerosols in Earth's atmosphere. It was launched in 2002.
A mysterious, reusable Air Force space plane that can operate uncrewed in Earth orbit for hundreds of days at a time. Its mission remains classified. The X-37 started as a NASA project before being transferred to the Department of Defense. The craft's first orbital mission took place in 2010.
Source does not identify this, but it appears to bean artist's conception of a TIROS N satellite, either either NOAA-18 or NOAA-19 (which are essentially identical).
This is a polar-orbiting satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Its role is to collect data on Earth's environment and atmosphere to add to climate records and improve weather predictions. It launched in 2005.
Artist's concept of Japan's Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), also known as Daichi.
The Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), also called Daichi, operated from 2006 to 2011 and remains in orbit. It was used to improve cartography and disaster monitoring in Asia and the Pacific.
Launched in 2013, Landsat 8 has better sensors than any Landsat satellite ever launched before it. The mission is a joint one between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey and aims to monitor changes in the Earth's land use over time.
Launched in 2009, this is the last of its series of polar-orbiting satellites. The satellite is for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and collects data for weather forecasts.
Traveling to Mars presents a lot of challenges. Money is by far the biggest, but right behind it is fuel. It takes a ton of propellant to get into space, let alone travel to the nearest planet. That issue, however, may finally be resolved thanks to new technology.
The European Space Agency (ESA) tested a thruster that uses molecules in space to fuel it. This air-breathing ion thruster could allow for a satellite to orbit the red planet without the need of additional propellant, such as xenon. It works by skimming molecules from space and then compressing them to form plasma. Then an electric field would accelerate the plasma thus propelling the satellite.
The first air-breathing ion thruster.
“This design of the collector was challenging because the air molecules tend to bounce out again, rather than be retained and compressed to a point where they turn into plasma, capable of being accelerated with an electric field,” Louis Walpot, leader of the project at ESA, told Space.com. “The collector-plus-thruster design is entirely passive in nature — the air enters the collector due to the spacecraft’s velocity as it orbits around Earth. All it needs is electric power to ionize the compressed air.”
Work on the project started in 2015 with the ESA funding the collaboration of Polish Firm QuinteScience and Italy’s Sitael. Testing for the thruster was done in a vacuum chamber located in Italy. The chamber simulated the surroundings at 120 miles above Earth. At that distance, the thruster would suck in nitrogen and oxygen molecules, but would work differently in Mars’ orbit, where it would gather carbon dioxide molecules at approximately 75-85 miles from the planet’s surface.
The next step for the project is to improve the technology and begin working on a more realistic flight configuration. Walpot said they will start looking at potential applications for the technology.
The Chinese space station Tiangong-1 will reenter Earth’s atmosphere this weekend. Updated reentry predictions here. Plus video showing some last glimpses of the space station.
Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog. Read his thoughts on the statistical chances a piece of Tiangong-1 will hit us.
Meanwhile, experienced sky observers caught video of Tiangong-1 last week, as it sped across our sky on its way to a fiery demise this weekend. We know of at least two who succeeded in this demanding observation. See their videos below. Brian Ottum posted his view of the space station – from early in the day on Wednesday – on Instagram:
astropicsdailyAs you may have heard, the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 will come crashing down to Earth this weekend. Here is my video of the bus-sized satellite from this morning. The camera was having trouble keeping up with Tiangong as it zoomed across the sky - you can see stars whip past. Taken March 28, 12.6UT. The space station is starting to dip into the atmosphere, 120 miles up. Friction could be starting to cause it to warm up and glow. Predictions have it burning up late Saturday night, but that could happen as early as Saturday morning or Sunday. We just don't know where or when. Chunks are likely to hit Earth, but probably the ocean. Video taken with Canon 5DmkIII, 10" F/5 reflector telescope, satellite tracking Paramount MX mount, remote control observatory located at Dark Sky New Mexico.
algolwatchMy app has it in our hood Sunday 6:41... think it'll last that long?
astropicsdaily@algolwatch 6UT on Sunday, which is 2am EDT, is currently the best forecast. But the uncertainty is about 24 hrs either side!!!!! We currently have no idea where or when. Hopefully better estimate on Friday evening.
brianm910Awesome! I was wondering if I could find it here and get a video of it.
The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome and Tenagra Observatories in Arizona provided an exciting livestream of their successful attempt to view Tiangong-1, also earlier in the day on Wednesday. Check this out! It’s really fun to hear Gianluca Masi‘s commentary and he searches for – and finds – the space station.
As of now (early in the day on March 31, 2018) the spacecraft is at about 113 miles (182 km) in altitude. That’s down from about 134 miles (215 km) altitude on March 24. And it’s down from 155 miles (258 km) on March 7. Its orbit is clearly decaying as you can see if you follow the spacecraft’s descent here. The end will come more or less suddenly, due in part to changing conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere, which is why it’s so inherently unpredictable.
Have you been hearing specific reentry locations for China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, aka Heavenly Palace 1? I heard Michigan at one point, then Wisconsin.
Don’t believe these specific predictions. Experts are still saying reentry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (see map below). As Guy Ottewell points out:
The satellite’s orbit is inclined 43 degrees to the equator, which means that it passes over latitudes between 43 north and 43 south. That includes all of the Americas between the Great Lakes and southern Argentina, all of southern Europe, Asia from Korea south, all of Africa and Australia and the East Indies. So there are a few tens of millions of square miles of land, and more of water, that a descending piece may choose to hit.
At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
Tiangong-1 potential reentry area. Map showing the area between 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south latitude (in green), over which Tiangong-1 could reenter.
Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011, and, originally, a controlled reentry was planned. Firing the craft’s engines would have enabled controllers to allow the craft to burn up (mostly) over a large, unpopulated region of the South Pacific ocean. Any surviving pieces would have fallen into the ocean. But, in March 2016, the Tiangong-1 space station ceased functioning. Ground teams lost control of the craft, and it can no longer be commanded to fire its engines. It is, therefore, expected to make an uncontrolled reentry … soon.
The spacecraft’s main body is approximately 34 feet (10.4 meters) long.
ESA has said that Tiangong-1 will “substantially burn up” in Earth’s atmosphere. Will pieces crash to Earth? Possibly. Will they crash in populated areas? It’s not possible to say, but the chances are small that any human being will be harmed, according to a statement from Aerospace, a research organization that advises government and private enterprise on space flight. Aerospace said:
There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground. Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over.
Aerospace also warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board.
Tiangong-1 is not designed to withstand reentry, as some spacecraft are. But it will mostly burn up when it falls, due to the extreme heat and friction generated by its high-speed passage through Earth’s atmosphere.
Tiangong-1’s predicted reentry as of March 29, 2018, via ESA.
Tiangong-1’s major goal was to test and master technologies related to orbital rendezvous and docking. One uncrewed and two crewed missions – executed by the Shenzhou (Divine Craft) spacecraft – took place during its operational lifetime. ESA explained:
Following launch in 2011, the Tiangong-1 orbit began steadily decaying due to the faint, yet not-zero, atmospheric drag present even at 300 or 400 km altitude [~200 to 250 miles altitude]. This affects all satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, for example.
Bottom line: China’s first space station will soon undergo an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. As of early in the day on March 31, Aerospace Corporation was predicting April 1 at 16:15 UTC ± 9 hours. At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
“It’s really, really exciting but also very emotional. You hear the history and the stories, and now you’re standing and looking at something that’s real, that’s confirming the stories that have been handed down over the generations.”
(Duncan McLaren)
When did you ever hear someone speak so emotionally about footprints? William Housty, a member of the Heiltsuk Nation — a First Nations government in the Central Coast region of British Columbia – used those words in a Washington Post article to describe the discovery of 29 footprints on Calvert Island that date back 13,000 years, making them the oldest footprints ever discovered in North America. That alone would be enough to make the Heiltsuk people emotional, but there’s more that will make the “this changes everything” crowd shed a tear as well. The prints add credibility to the prevailing theory that ancient humans from Asia explored and populated North America by traversing the Pacific coastline rather than walking through the interior.
Location of tiny Calvert Island
In a study published in PLOS One, Duncan McLaren of the University of Victoria and the Hakai Research Institute describes how his team found the footprints (pictures here) and then spent three years studying them and the area where they were discovered. The prints were discovered on the shore of Calvert Island in 2014. It appears they were made in clay, then they filled with sand, gravel and more clay which preserved them. It took them two seasons to remove the prints while dealing with rising tides.
Once removed, over half of the footprints were of good enough quality to be identified as human — “based on the clear arch, toe, and offset heel attributes of the tracks found during excavations, we are certain that they were left by human feet” – and measured. Sounding like a shoe salesman, McClaren described what they found.
“The footprint measurements correspond to modern day US shoe sizes of a junior size 8, a junior size 1 or woman’s size 3, and a woman’s size 8-9 (or man’s size 7-8).”
The smallest print is from a child, a significant find since most remains and artifacts are generally from adults. There was no evidence they wore any form of foot coverings – also unusual. Wood fragments located in the foot path allowed the researchers to date the footprints to just over 13,000 years ago.
“This provides evidence that people were inhabiting the region at the end of the last ice age. It is possible that the coast was one of the means by which people entered the Americas at that time. As this island would only have been accessible by watercraft 13,000 years ago. it implies that the people who left the footprints were seafarers who used boats to get around, gather and hunt for food and live and explore the islands.”
Calvert Island shore
The age and location of the prints support an interesting theory called the Kelp Highway, which suggests that a high concentration of underwater kelp along the North Pacific coast which fed an ecosystem that allowed seafaring people to live and travel along the shore.
Based on all of this, the footprints of Calvert Island should at least be considered a discovery that changes many things.
As you may have seen, I recently wrote an article on Truman Bethurum’s controversial, alleged encounters in the early 1950s with a hot babe from another world. Her name: Aura Rhanes. I suggested in the article that Bethurum’s encounters may have been caused by hypnagogia. Of this particular phenomenon, healthline.com state: “If you think you’re seeing — or smelling, hearing, tasting, or feeling — things when you’re asleep, you may not be dreaming. It’s possible you’re experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations. These can occur in the consciousness state between waking and sleeping.” It’s a fact that a lack of sleep – and disturbed sleep patterns, such as shift-work – can provoke vivid hypnagogic states. A good argument can be made that Truman Bethurum’s experiences occurred when he was in just such a state.
There are other cases which may be explainable by hypnagogia. One of them occurred back in 1947 and is recorded in now-declassified FBI files (which can be accessed at the UFO section of the FBI’s website, The Vault). It was in the second week of July 1949 that an intriguing story caught the attention of the FBI. The story was given to the Bureau by a broadcaster and journalist, Walter Winchell. He told the FBI that he had received a UFO-themed letter from a “Mr. Jones” of Los Angeles, California. According to Jones, the encounter had occurred two years earlier, in 1947. Why Jones waited so long to tell his story, we don’t know. But, let’s see what the FBI had to say about this particular case of the flying saucer kind.
The now-declassified documentation states: “In this letter, Jones stated that in August of 1947 he left Los Angeles for the mountains and started hiking through the mountains. About 10:00 a.m. he was laying on the ground when he observed about one-half block away from him a large, silver, metal object, greenish in color, shaped like a child’s top and about the size of the balloons used at Country Fairs.”
The FBI added: “[Jones] stated that there appeared to be two windows in the object and portions of metal appeared transparent and that he gained the impression that there was some life within this object although he saw no persons. The object appeared as though sealed as a pressure chamber. He stood up and waved toward this object and this so-called flying saucer was off the ground in a second, knocking Jones to the ground. In its flight he stated that its power was silent and he raised the question as to whether this was an inter-global landing on our planet. He thought that it might be a device to land on our planet because the occupants of another planet had become curious as to the reaction caused by the atomic bomb causing trouble in an expanding universe. He asked the question as to whether it was possible that the occupants of another planet might have solved the theory of negative energy.”
This is all very interesting, as much of what Jones had to say – about issues concerning “the reaction caused by the atomic bomb” – mirrored what many of the UFO “Contactees” began to talk about from the early 1950s onward. It should be noted, though, that by Jones’ admission, when he encountered the UFO he was “laying on the ground,” and specifically after taking a hike. In light of that, it’s highly possible that Jones, after a long trek, had fallen asleep and entered a graphic, hypnagogic state. Now, let’s move onto a famous case from the 1960s.
It was in the early hours of December 3, 1967 that a police-officer named Herbert Schirmer had an extraordinary encounter at Ashland, Nebraska. While on patrol, Schirmer came across what, at first, he thought was a broken-down truck at the edge of the road. It was not. What Schirmer saw – when his headlights lit up the object – was an egg-shaped craft floating a couple of meters above the ground and giving off a red glow.
The egg-le has landed
There followed a face-to-face encounter with a trio of human-like entities that were around five-feet in height, maybe slightly smaller. Schirmer was quickly taken on-board – although not by force. Indeed, he was invited to take a tour of the craft from another world. There was also the matter of what has become known in Ufology as “missing time.” According to Schirmer, although he believed he was only in the vehicle for around ten minutes, when he later checked he realized that around an hour of time couldn’t be accounted for.
It sounds like a classic UFO encounter. And, maybe, that’s exactly what it was. On the other hand, there is the not insignificant fact that by his own admission Schirmer often had sleep disturbances, as do many people who work shifts – as Schirmer did. In the early hours and just before dropping off to sleep Schirmer would hear strange noises – and on more than a few occasions. On other occasions he even found he had his hands around his wife’s throat. Thankfully, no harm was done. Sleep disturbances, strange sounds, working irregular hours, and even extreme and violent activity are all part of hypnagogia – which can affect people to significantly varying degrees.
Now, I should stress that I don’t think hypnagogia is the cause of all close encounters. To even try and claim such a thing would be ridiculous. And, it would be unwarranted, too. But, where there is a clear and specific connection to a sleep-related condition that can provoke vivid imagery, and even voices, I think we would do well to focus far more on the mysteries of the mind, and far less on the mysteries of outer space.
Here in the U.S., we can’t get our politicians to engage in civil debates about anything, let alone mythical monsters – unless they’re trying to get approval to make that monster THEIR state’s monster (see Washington state’s fight to make Bigfoot its official state monster – you can’t make this stuff up!). However, this is not the case in the British Parliament, where this week two members of the House of Commons discussed the existence of the Loch Ness monster and one revealed his own great-uncle was involved in an early sighting. Really!
The debate started when Scottish MP Drew Hendry was bragging about the growth of tourism in the towns under his jurisdiction, which includes Inverness, home of the Loch Ness monster.
“Why wouldn’t you, Mr. Speaker, want to come to Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey? To enjoy the snow sports in the Cairngorms, perhaps, or golfing in Nairn, or go on a cruise along Loch Ness with Jacobite cruises.”
The House of Commons — crowded but peaceful
Hendry was addressing MP Bob Stewart, who represents Beckenham in South-East London. Being a politician and not having access at the time to Twitter, Stewart responded to Hendry’s question face-to-face on the floor of Parliament with a revelation that both chided Hendry and shocked the rest of the members, the general public and Nessie believers worldwide.
“I want to help him by saying my uncle, who was at school on the edges of Loch Ness as a boy, saw the Loch Ness monster. In consequence, tourism expanded hugely. It was in all the Scottish newspapers. And only at his funeral did he allow it that he was a fake.”
If this had occurred in the U.S., all eyes would have turned to the nearest television to see what the cable news networks had to say. This being the U.K., Stewart was allowed to continue.
“For the sake of clarity, my uncle … was at prep school alongside Loch Ness in 1931 when he was late back to school and he and another boy claimed they were watching the Loch Ness monster. This grew big: Scotsman, lots of pictures and he was stuck with this. And it was only at my great uncle’s funeral that he allowed his son to declare that actually he hadn’t seen the Loch Ness Monster all those years ago as a boy.”
If this had occurred in the U.S., the tweets and retweets and memes would be flying. Instead, Hendry gave this stern yet polite response.
“[That is] a scurrilous attack on what is quite clearly one of my constituents.”
The first half of that statement is true, the second is also true assuming Nessie exists. The real question is, was Stewart telling the truth? He claims the sighting was reported in The Scotsman. The Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register – the go-to source for all things Nessie – lists one official sighting in 1931 by a J.J. Christie. However, the only record of that sighting it could find is an article in The Inverness, not The Scotsman, and it didn’t appear in the paper until 1948. That seems strange, considering the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register is pretty thorough and Stewart said there were “lots of pictures.” Also, Stewart doesn’t give his great-uncle’s name.
MP Bob Stewart — would he lie about the Loch Ness monster?
Then there’s the alleged funeral confession by his great-uncle’s son that the alleged sighting of the alleged monster was all a real hoax. Really?
It was at this point that Stewart seems to be feeling a little guilty and says:
“But I want to say I believe there is a Loch Ness monster.”
Now there’s something that would NEVER happen on the floor of the U.S. Congress.
“There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”
Of all people, you would think that Pope Francis would know not to upset the status quo right before Easter. And yet, he allegedly declared hell does not exist … and it has become of public relations nightmare for the Vatican and an even worse nightmare for his followers as, just a few hours after this shocking declaration, pieces of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome suddenly came crashing to the ground – narrowly missing worshipers and Michelangelo’s famous Pieta statue. Is this a coincidence or asign? Will churches be even MORE overflowing on Easter Sunday?
The problem started … as many religious problems do … with an atheist. Eugenio Scalfari — a 93-year-old Italian journalist, former member of the Italian parliament, co-founder of the newspaper La Repubblica and an avowed atheist – was interviewing Pope Francis for a piece that was scheduled to run on March 29th – Holy Thursday for Catholics. Why was Pope Francis being interviewed by an atheist? Because that’s the kind of open-to-all-ideas pope he is. And that’s probably what got him into the mess he’s in.
A loophole?
Scalfari, being an experienced journalist who’s done his share of big interviews, claims he never has and still does not take notes nor record his interviews with the pope, preferring to rely on his memory. Being 93, that may be why the Vatican’s PR team is blaming his memory for what it’s calling his “reconstruction” of what the pontiff actually said. The pope himself did not issue a retraction nor make any subsequent comments on the interview and the alleged quote.
Why? Perhaps he was a little worried. Just a few hours after the interview in La Repubblica was published, all hell (you knew it was coming) broke loose in St. Peter’s Basilica as pieces broke loose from the ceiling and crashed hundreds of feet to the floor. Officially known as the Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, it’s considered to be the burial site of Saint Peter and the church where the pope conducts services on major Catholic occasions, including the upcoming Easter Sunday mass.
According to The Duran and other media outlets, a Vatican spokesperson said that no one was injured when plaster fell from the ceiling and broke into pieces on the marble floor near Michelangelo’s Pieta, one of the most famous statues in the world (photo here). The area was cordoned off until an inspection could be made. This is not what the Vatican wants to hear when thousands of people will be crammed into the basilica on Sunday.
Did Pope Francis really say that hell – the place where many believe the souls of the worst of the worst spend eternity in torture as punishment – doesn’t exist? Only he and Eugenio Scalfari know for sure. Is there a connection between the alleged quote and the ceiling pieces falling in St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope’s church, two days before Easter? Who knows? Stranger things have happened. Is the declaration that there is no hell a big enough scandal to warrant such a sign? That’s one for the theologians and religious historians.
The answer to all of these questions will be revealed if Pope Francis conducts Easter services in a pointy white hardhat.
Mysterieuze objecten scheren langs vliegtuig. Argentijnse piloot legde het tafereel vast op video
Mysterieuze objecten scheren langs vliegtuig. Argentijnse piloot legde het tafereel vast op video
Er zijn beelden opgedoken van ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten die langs een vliegtuig schieten. Een Argentijnse piloot legde het tafereel vast op video.
De video toont twee mysterieuze vliegende objecten die de piloot op enkele meters passeren, meldt het Russische persbureau Sputnik.
De objecten vliegen door de dichte bewolking en één ervan beweegt tot twee keer toe van de ene naar de andere kant voordat het uit beeld verdwijnt.
Vorm
De beelden zijn op YouTube gezet door Jason Gleaves, die al lange tijd onderzoek doet naar dit fenomeen.
Hij kan niet met zekerheid zeggen welke vorm de objecten hebben omdat de oorspronkelijke beelden van lage kwaliteit zijn.
De piloot gebruikte een mobiele telefoon en de hoek van waaruit hij filmde maakt een goede analyse vrijwel onmogelijk.
Arizona
Mensen reageerden verdeeld op het filmpje, dat inmiddels ruim 30.000 keer is bekeken. Sommigen zien het als bewijs voor UFO’s, terwijl anderen denken dat de beelden nep zijn.
Pas geleden nog zagen twee piloten een onbekend vliegend object in het zuiden van Arizona. Het is nog altijd niet duidelijk wat zij daar hebben gezien.
JE KUNT NATUURLIJK BLIJVEN VOLHOUDEN DAT ER NIETS AAN DE HAND IS ( VIDEO )
JE KUNT NATUURLIJK BLIJVEN VOLHOUDEN DAT ER NIETS AAN DE HAND IS ( VIDEO )
Zoals we in een eerder artikel aangaven is het niet één bijzondere gebeurtenis, maar een optelsom van vreemde onverklaarbare zaken.
En de meeste van die onverklaarbare zaken doen zich de laatste weken voor in de lucht, waar steeds meer mensen dingen opmerken die allesbehalve "normaal" zijn.
De meeste mensen lopen letterlijk naar de grond te kijken of hun online verbinding en als iets niet in het scherm van hun smartphone verschijnt, dan bestaat het niet. Echter, voor hen die wel regelmatig naar de lucht kijken, begint het steeds meer op te vallen dat er iets niet klopt.
We hebben de laatste tijd regelmatig aandacht besteed aan vreemde kleuren in de lucht. Kleuren zoals bloedrood, oranje of paars die niet te verklaren zijn door atmosferische omstandigheden. Veelal nemen mensen dit soort kleuren waar in een noordwestelijke richting enkele uren nadat de zon is ondergegaan.
Waar in eerste instantie soms nog wordt gedacht aan het noorderlicht als mogelijke verklaring, gaat dit in de meeste gevallen niet op vanwege en de locatie waar dit fenomeen wordt waargenomen en omdat er geen omstandigheden waren die dag die het noorderlicht veroorzaakt zouden kunnen hebben.
Zoals bijvoorbeeld de volgende opnames die zijn gemaakt om 's avonds tien uur in de plaats Athens in de Amerikaanse staat Georgia. Je ziet op een gegeven moment de hemel lichter worden en dan veranderen in allerlei kleuren zoals rood-achtig en zelfs paars. De mensen die dit hebben waargenomen zijn stomverbaasd en vragen zich wat hier in 's hemelsnaam aan de hand is.
De volgende opname is gemaakt op 28 maart 2018 in de plaats Prosper in Texas rond negen uur 's avonds en wederom in westelijke richting. Je ziet duidelijk de hemel oplichten op een niet natuurlijke manier uren nadat de zon is ondergegaan.
De volgende opname is gemaakt om vier uur 's ochtends in westelijke richting in een plaats die Antlers heet in de Amerikaanse staat Oklahoma. Degene die deze opname heeft gemaakt, is vol verbazing over hoe het kan dat hij om die tijd in westelijke richting een oranje hemel ziet.
Dan verschijnen er opnieuw opnames uit Athens, dit keer gemaakt op 28 maart en dan om zes uur 's ochtends. Wederom die je in westelijke richting de hemel oplichten en een rood-achtige kleur krijgen.
En dan in een heel ander deel van de wereld nog iets merkwaardigs. We hebben onlangs kunnen zien hoe een aantal wintersportgebieden oranje sneeuw voor kwam en dit zou dan veroorzaakt zijn door zandstormen in de Sahara.
Rond dezelfde tijd was er ook in de plaats Quargla in Algerije een rode mist te zien. Echter door die mist zie je net nog de zon en daarnaast nog iets wat op een kleinere zon lijkt. Ook toen vorig jaar een storm over Engeland trok en ook een soort rode mist veroorzaakte, gebeurde hetzelfde. Heel veel mensen hebben toen een tweede zon in de lucht waargenomen.Waarschijnlijk fungeert deze mist in de lucht als een soort filter, waardoor je ineens wél dingen naast de zon kunt waarnemen.
Bovenstaande opname is afkomstig uit de volgende video, waar de commentator helaas een Skandinavische taal spreekt dus voor ons niet te verstaan, maar de beelden zijn duidelijk.
Hier volgt nog een video van een onbekend iemand ergens ter wereld. Ook hier hoor je een verbaasde stem over de rood-achtige lucht middenin de nacht.
In landen waar de zon normaal gesproken veelvuldig schijnt zoals Thailand, is er eveneens iets dat veel mensen opvalt en waar ze foto's van maken. De kleur van de zon is veranderd, er hangt een soort roodachtige gloed om de zon die er voorheen niet was. De volgende vier foto's zijn allemaal gemaakt op verschillende locaties in Azië door verschillende mensen.
Ook in ons land valt wel degelijk het nodige waar te nemen. Wij ontvingen het volgende van een lezer (dank!):
Ik ben weer een opmerkelijke foto tegen gekomen op Buienradar.
De foto is gemaakt door A. K. (privacy) te Weidum op 29-03-2018. Zij spreekt over een heerlijke dag in het Noorden, dus in neem aan dat de foto genomen is in de avonduren. De foto toont een opmerkelijke uitstulping ten noordwesten van de Zon. De ene foto is een origineel en de andere heb ik veranderd door de belichting aan te passen.
Kijk naar het resultaat. Het liegt er niet om. Nibiru is daar.
Waar het bovenstaande nog valt in de categorie: natuurlijk, dat wil zeggen, niet door mensen gemanipuleerd, kan dat absoluut niet gezegd worden van het volgende dat we eveneens via een lezer ontvingen (dank!):
Volkomen normaal... een vierkante wolk.
Dat dit soort dingen werkelijk voorkomen blijkt uit video's die eerder zijn gepubliceerd: Ook daar voorbeelden van vierkante wolken. En zo hebben we boven onze hoofden een mix van manipulatie door de mens een een grote planeet die steeds dichterbij schijnt te komen.
Des te meer reden om te zorgen dat je de komende tijd gezond en dus bij deze nog eens de aanbieding van Orjana voor Niburulezers deze week.
De beste bescherming voor je kinderen is zo gezond mogelijk eten en een sterk immuunsysteem opbouwen. Wanneer je tóch iets preventief wil doen, geef ze dan enkele druppels CBD olie per dag. Dit zorgt ervoor dat ontstekingen worden bestreden en het zijn ontstekingen die uiteindelijk de oorzaak zijn van bijna alle ziektes, inclusief kanker.
Als je CBD wilt, gebruik dan de rauwe versie(s) zoals die van Orjana, waar alle elementen van de plant in zitten behalve het hallucinerende THC en maak gebruik van de aanbieding van deze week voor Nibirulezers. Voer de code "cbdtien" in en ontvang 10% korting op 10ml CBD olie van Orjana. Deze actie loopt nog tm zondag 1 april.
Mensen die met vragen zitten over hun medische toestand en het gebruik van bijvoorbeeld CBD kunnen die stellen via de website van Orjana.
Het is februari 2014 als het ruim 100 meter lange vrachtschip Luno vanwege motorproblemen op de rosten terechtkomt in de golf van Biskaje.
Gelukkig worden de 12 bemanningsleden tijdig van boord gehaald door helikopters, maar deze zijn niet alleen.
Dankzij een onlangs uitgekomen boek zijn er nu ook beelden van een wel zeer bijzondere reddingsoperatie
Het vrachtschip Luno krijgt motorproblemen en strandt op de rotsen van de kust bij Anglet in Frankrijk.
Het schip heeft 12 bemanningsleden aan boord en het duurt niet al te lang voordat het schip in tweeën breekt.
Vlak voordat het schip breekt, verschijnt er een legerhelikopter die begint met het van boord halen van de bemanningsleden.
Echter, een plaatselijk televisiekanaal dat opnamen maakt, krijgt ook nog wat anders in beeld. Een formatie van twee UFO's die plotseling tevoorschijn komen en rakelings achter de helikopter langs schieten.
Een aantal experts heeft de beelden uitgebreid bestudeerd en men komt tot de conclusie dat de objecten geen drones of vogels zijn.
Ook na uitgebreide studie blijft over dat het niet geïdentificeerde objecten zijn, UFO's dus. Blijft over de vraag wat deze daar op dat moment deden.
Was het nieuwsgierigheid of was er misschien een andere reden dat ze daar waren op dat moment.
Diamond UFO Over Mountain Area Haleiwa, Hawaii In March 20, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Diamond UFO Over Mountain Area Haleiwa, Hawaii In March 20, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 20, 2018
Location of sighting: Haleiwa, Hawaii, USA
Source: MUFON #91118
This diamond craft was captured in Hawaii last week. The object is sitting just over a cloud at the top of the mountain, which makes me think it may have come from the mountain area. The diamond object is tilted, telling me its trajectory was either going up or down. Not left or right like a bird or drone. The diamond shape is just incredible...and over Hawaii.
Eyewitness states:
Saturnesque object taken on my LGV20 phone on March 20, 2018 Halewia, Oahu.
UFOs Become Visible For A Few Minutes From ISS High Above The Earth
UFOs Become Visible For A Few Minutes From ISS High Above The Earth
MrMBB333 of YouTube recently released strange UFOs that was claimed to be caught on live. These unidentified flying objects appear to float in a place and make little movement. The video, which was reportedly taken on March 17, 2018, seems to show something high above the earth and visible from the International Space Station (ISS).
MrMBB333 said that he was not expecting those unknown objects, who he just used his iPhone to record that mysterious activity.
MrMBB333 noted that the UFOs have some reflective properties and appear to be moving a little bit. He explained that he watched the ISS livestreams quite a bit, but never seen anything like these.
The unknown objects are so for away in the video, but it definitely shows that there is something there at the moment.
MrMBB333 stated that he was open to interpretation as he did not know what to tell to his viewers about the anomaly. He can only assume that those UFOs might be a structure or group of objects right up there.
The objects disappeared as the ISS moved closer in their direction.
Sporen van 1 miljoen mensen ontdekt in 'onbewoonde Amazonegebieden'
Sporen van 1 miljoen mensen ontdekt in 'onbewoonde Amazonegebieden'
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Wij dachten dat in deze gebieden vrijwel niemand woonde. Maar we zaten er goed naast.
Het Amazonegebied is enorm uitgestrekt en lang niet alle delen zijn even goed bereikbaar. Geen wonder dat archeologen het gebied nog steeds niet helemaal hebben uitgekamd. Ze moeten keuzes maken; ze kunnen onmogelijk het hele Amazonegebied aan een onderzoek onderwerpen. Tot op heden richtten archeologische studies zich daarom op gebieden in de omgeving van de grote rivieren. Aangenomen werd dat dat de plekken waren waar mensen zich in het verleden het liefst vestigden. Maar daar moeten we nu op terugkomen. Onderzoekers van de universiteit van Exeter hebben dieper in het regenwoud – dus op grote afstand van de grote rivieren – namelijk sporen gevonden van honderden dorpjes die samen mogelijk tot wel 1 miljoen mensen herbergden.
Mato Grosso De onderzoekers bestudeerden een gebied in wat nu de Braziliaanse provincie Mato Grosso is. Ze vonden er niet alleen resten van versterkte dorpen, maar ook 81 mysterieuze geoglyfen (zie kader). De dorpjes bevinden zich in de meeste gevallen nabij of zelfs in de geoglyfen.
Afbeelding: University of Exeter.
Geoglyfen zijn door mensen gemaakte greppels in het landschap die vanuit de lucht gezien een vierkante, ronde of zelfs hexagonale vorm hebben. De functie van de greppels is nog altijd onbekend. Mogelijk werden ze voor ceremoniële doeleinden aangelegd.
Misvatting “Het is een veelvoorkomende misvatting dat de Amazone een ongerept landschap is, waarin her en der verspreid nomadische gemeenschappen te vinden zijn,” stelt onderzoeker Jonas Gregorio de Souza. “Dat klopt niet. Wij ontdekten dat sommige populaties die op afstand van de grote rivieren leefden, veel groter waren dan gedacht en dat deze mensen van invloed waren op hun omgeving en dat kunnen we ook nog steeds zien.”
Het onderzoek naar de geschiedenis van het Amazonewoud is niet alleen interessant voor archeologen. Ook biologen kunnen er hun voordeel mee doen, meent De Souza. “De Amazone speelt een cruciale rol in het reguleren van het aardse klimaat en als we meer over de geschiedenis ervan weten, helpt dat een ieder om betere beslissingen te nemen over hoe we in de toekomst voor het woud moeten zorgen.”
Extreme temperatuurveranderingen kon prehistorische mensen niet klein krijgen
Extreme temperatuurveranderingen kon prehistorische mensen niet klein krijgen
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Ze hielden stand, zelfs toen de temperatuur in amper tien jaar tijd 3 graden Celsius daalde.
Dat blijkt uit opgravingen in Star Carr, een archeologische vindplaats uit de middensteentijd in Engeland. Op deze plaats zijn sporen van mensen gevonden die teruggaan tot zo’n 9000 voor Christus. Het betekent dat de mensen die hier woonden, met een behoorlijk instabiel klimaat te maken hadden (zie kader).
Na de ijstijd
Zo’n 11.500 jaar geleden kwam er een einde aan de IJstijd: de aarde begon op te warmen. Gletsjers trokken zich terug en ijskappen op het noordelijk halfrond verdwenen. Het zorgde ervoor dat er behoorlijk wat smeltwater in de oceanen liep en de interactie tussen die oceanen en het wegkwijnende ijs leidde tot extreme weersomstandigheden en een vrij instabiel klimaat.
Zo kregen de mensen in Engeland te maken met een zeer koude periode die zo’n honderd jaar aanhield. Maar dat deed ze weinig, zo onthullen de opgravingen. In aardlagen uit die periode zijn namelijk heel veel bewerkt hout, botten van dieren en gereedschappen aangetroffen dei stuk voor stuk getuigen van hun productiviteit en doorzettingsvermogen.
Geen onoverkomelijk probleem “Er is betoogd dat abrupte klimatologische gebeurtenissen een crash in Mesolithische populaties in het noorden van Groot-Brittannië veroorzaakten, maar onze studie onthult dat samenlevingen – in ieder geval die van de pionierende kolonisten in Star Carr – in staat was om om te gaan met extreme en aanhoudende klimatologische gebeurtenissen,” vertelt onderzoeker Simon Blockley. “Wij ontdekten dat mensen in feite veel sterker beïnvloed werden door kleine, lokale veranderingen in hun omgeving.” Blockley denkt dan bijvoorbeeld aan het verdwijnen van het meer dat ooit op de plek van Star Carr lag. Mensen woonden aan de rand ervan, maar zagen het meer op een gegeven moment geleidelijk aan verdwijnen. “Door de tijd heen werd het meer steeds ondieper en moerassiger, het begon in veenland te veranderen en dwong de kolonisten om het gebied te verlaten.”
De onderzoekers baseren hun conclusies niet alleen op archeologische vondsten. Ze bestudeerden ook pollen en sedimenten om meer te weten te komen over de klimaatveranderingen waarmee deze mensen te maken kregen. Zo ontdekten ze twee perioden van extreme afkoeling, waarbij de gemiddelde temperatuur in ongeveer tien jaar tijd met 3 graden Celsius afnam. De eerste keer dat dat gebeurde, hadden mensen dit gebied nog maar net betrokken. De afkoeling zorgde er in dat stadium waarschijnlijk voor dat de samenleving wat minder vooruitgang boekte en wat minder actief was. Maar toen er een tijd later weer sprake was van afkoeling, stond de samenleving al wat sterker in de schoenen en hadden de dalende temperaturen weinig effect. Het onderzoek onthult volgens onderzoeker Nicky Milner dat we niet te snel conclusies moeten trekken over de effecten die extreme temperatuurveranderingen op vroege mensenpopulaties heeft gehad.
Compleet nieuw 'orgaan' ontdekt in het menselijk lichaam
Compleet nieuw 'orgaan' ontdekt in het menselijk lichaam
Caroline Kraaijvanger
En het lijkt ook nog eens een heel belangrijke functie te hebben.
Het nieuwe ‘orgaan’ bevindt zich net onder het oppervlak van de huid, rond het spijsverteringskanaal, de longen, de urinewegen en omringende vaten, aderen en het bindweefsel tussen spieren. Lang werd gedacht dat het dichte, verbindende weefsels waren. Maar in werkelijkheid blijken het met vloeistof gevulde compartimenten te zijn die bovendien met elkaar in verbinding staan.
Functie De compartimenten hebben waarschijnlijk een zeer belangrijke functie, zo stellen onderzoekers in het blad Scientific Reports. Mogelijk doen ze dienst als schokdempers die voorkomen dat weefsels die veel samenknijpen, pulseren of pompen – denk aan organen, maar ook spieren en bloedvaten – scheuren.
Hier zie je het interstitium onder de huid.
Afbeelding: Jill Gregory / Mount Sinai Health System, CC-BY-ND.
Interstitium De ontdekking van dit nieuwe orgaan – dat de onderzoekers ‘interstitium’ hebben gedoopt – kan bovendien meer inzicht geven in verschillende ziekten. Zo kunnen de onderzoekers nu verklaren dat kankercellen die het weefsel rond onder meer het spijsverteringskanal, de longen en vaten binnendringen, hun weg weten te vinden naar de lymfeklieren. Je moet het interstitium als het ware zien als een verzameling snelwegen waar vloeistoffen gebruik van kunnen maken om zich door het lichaam te verplaatsen en dat wegennetwerk komt uit in de lymfeklieren.
Waarom nu pas? Het lijkt misschien vreemd dat onderzoekers anno 2018 nog nieuwe organen ontdekken in het menselijk lichaam. Hoe kon het interstitium zo lang onopgemerkt blijven? Dat is goed te verklaren. Onderzoekers bestuderen weefsels eigenlijk altijd onder de microscoop. Voor ze het onder de microscoop leggen, bewerken ze deze echter altijd enigszins om de cellen en andere structuren goed in beeld te krijgen. Het betekent onder meer dat alle vloeistof uit het weefsel wordt gehaald. Hierdoor stort het interstitium als een pannenkoek ineen, waardoor het opeens een heel dicht weefsel lijkt.
De onderzoekers kwamen het nieuwe ‘orgaan’ op het spoor dankzij een vrij nieuwe technologie die gebruikt kan worden om weefsels in beeld te brengen. De technologie werd gebruikt om te verwijderen weefsels in het lichaam van kankerpatiënten te bestuderen en liet de met vloeistoffen gevulde weefsels zien. Vervolgonderzoek wees uit dat die met vloeistof gevulde compartimenten overal waar in het lichaam weefsels bewogen of samengedrukt werden, te vinden waren.
Aarde had mogelijk al oceanen vóórdat de maan ontstond
Aarde had mogelijk al oceanen vóórdat de maan ontstond
De aarde had misschien al veel vroeger water dan gedacht. Zo vroeg zelfs dat er al oceanen bestonden vóór de kolossale inslag van een protoplaneet ter grootte van Mars die de maan deed ontstaan.
Tot die conclusie komt een team van wetenschappers, onder leiding van Richard Greenwood van de Britse Open University, dat de zuurstofsamenstelling van maangesteenten heeft vergeleken met die van basaltgesteenten uit de diepe oceanen op aarde (Science Advances, 28 maart).
De aanwezigheid van vloeibaar water verandert de hoeveelheden van verschillende zuurstofisotopen in gesteente. Dus als het meeste water op aarde pas na de grote inslag was aangekomen, zouden de aardse gesteenten een duidelijk andere zuurstofsamenstelling moeten hebben dan die van de maan. Dat blijkt echter niet het geval te zijn: de verschillen zijn heel klein.
Dat wijst erop dat er ten tijde van de botsing met Theia, ongeveer 4,4 miljard jaar geleden, al veel water moet zijn geweest op aarde. Bovendien moet deze botsing dermate krachtig zijn geweest dat het materiaal van de jonge aarde zich volledig met dat van Theia vermengde.
Deze conclusie is in strijd met de gangbare gedachte dat de maan grotendeels uit materiaal van Theia bestaat en maar voor een klein deel uit aards oergesteente. Een andere interessante implicatie is dat kolossale inslagen als deze niet funest hoeven te zijn voor de watervoorraad op een planeet.
De kleine verschillen tussen de zuurstofsamenstellingen van de gesteenten van maan en aarde schrijven Greenwood en zijn collega’s toe aan een latere, veel kleinere inslagen die op aarde hebben plaatsgevonden. Daar zou onze planeet 5 tot 30 procent van haar watervoorraad aan te danken hebben.
Advanced Ancient Structures That Were Way Ahead Of Their Time
Advanced Ancient Structures That Were Way Ahead Of Their Time
The ancient world is full of wonders that the modern age cannot compete with. The beauty of modern buildings has its grace, but when we focus on the old structures, our mind gets bamboozled as they are so extraordinary and unique. A lot of methods and technologies which were used to create these ancient temples, palaces, and cities, remained rather obscure.
So, let us check out five fascinating ancient structures around the world which have been the subject of many movies, documentaries, and studies.
1 – Derinkuyu- The old underground City
The underground city of Derinkuyu reaches a depth of 60m (200 feet) and used to shelter as many as 20.000 people; it's the largest of the 200 underground cities discovered in Cappadocia, Turkey
In the Cappadocia region of Turkey there is a town called Derinkuyu; and beneath Derinkuyu there is a city, vast and deep, of ancient design, preserved to this day. The mystery of who built it and why remains, although scholars have their theories.
It is 11 levels, according to National Geographic, descending about 280 feet, with an area of a little over 4 miles squared (10.4 kilometers squared).
It includes chambers for various daily activities, including temples, tombs, shops, living quarters, and even livestock pens. It has 15,000 air shafts, and enough room to comfortably hold approximately 20,000 people.
Despite numerous theories have been suggested by archeologists nobody nows who exactly built this city and why.
2 – Hypogeum of Hal-Saflieni
The Hypogeum of Hal Saflieni in Malta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site which is believed to be the oldest prehistoric underground temple in the world. The subterranean structure is shrouded in mystery, from the discovery of elongated skulls to stories of paranormal phenomena. But the characteristic that has been attracting experts from around the globe is the unique acoustic properties found within the underground chambers of the Hypogeum.
Despite the plethora of research on the acoustic properties of the Oracle Room, there remain just as many questions as answers.
3 – The ancient Marib Dam
The Great Dam of Ma’rib certainly dates back to about the 8th century BCE and is considered the oldest known dam in the world, being counted as one of the most wonderful feats of engineering in the ancient world. The date of the first construction of the Dam at Ma’rib goes back to somewhere between 1750 and 1700 BC. The Sabaens managed all this before the existence of concrete, and their dam stood for over 1,000 years. In comparison, modern dams built with our advanced technology last for around 50 years. The Great Dam of Marib was about 2,000 feet long, and while it stood, it converted ancient Yemen into a fertile oasis, what was then known as the kingdom of Sheba.
4 – Puma Punku, the stone city
Puma Punku is the name of a large temple complex located near Tiwanaku, in Bolivia, and is part of a larger archaeological site known as Tiahuanacu. The temple’s origin is a mystery, but based on carbon dating of organic material found on site, archeologists believe the complex may have been built by the Tiwanaku empire – one of the most important civilization prior to the Inca Empire – that flourished between 300 and 1000 AD.
The most intriguing thing about Puma Punku is the stonework. The stones are of mammoth proportion. The largest of these blocks is 25.6 feet long, 17 feet wide and 3.5 feet thick, and is estimated to weigh 131 metric tons. Due to their size, the method by which they were transported to Puma Punku and perfectly cut has been main topic of interest since the temple’s discovery.
5 – Gobekli Tepe
The recently (1995) discovered monolith at Gobekli Tepe is clearly the worlds biggest mystery. When found, it appeared to have been deliberately buried in sand, for reasons that still remain unknown.
What’s even stranger is that carbon dating estimates the site to be over 12,000 years old!
The precision carving used during the construction is completely unexplainable. So far just 5% of this incredible site has been excavated. Situated at the northwest edge of Mesopotamia in Southeastern Turkey, Gobekli Tepe is a tell; that is, an ancient manmade hill built from the accumulated layers of millennia of building atop the ruins of those who came before. At the lowest level, its most significant construction dates back to 10,000-11,000 BC, a period that predates the introduction of writing, metal tools and the wheel in the region by 6,000 years.
Fondée en 1997, l’Association québécoise d’ufologie (AQU) est un réseau d’enquête et recherche sur les ovnis au Québec. L’AQU accueille des gens de tous les milieux qui s’intéressent à la question des objets volants non identifiés (OVNI).
Et en 20 ans d’existence, l’association affirme n’avoir jamais reçu autant de cas d’apparitions d’OVNIS en une seule année (2017) dans le ciel de la Belle Province (le Québec).
491 cas d’observations d’OVNIS seulement en 2017 au Québec
Entre autres activités, l’AQU mène régulièrement des enquêtes pour essayer d’élucider les différents cas d’observations que le public lui soumet. L’organisme s’est servi de toutes ces données recueillies au fil des ans pour réaliser une étude comparative des observations d’OVNIS faites au Québec. Il en ressort que 491 cas d’observations d’OVNIS auraient été rapportés en sol québécois en 2017. En comparaison, il n’y avait eu que 177 cas en 2014, soit 314 cas de plus en un an.
Selon Gilles Milot, le président de l’organisme, cela s’explique par le fait que « les gens ont moins peur de faire rire d’eux aujourd’hui, parce qu’ils s’aperçoivent qu’ils ne sont pas les seuls à vivre des expériences impliquant des phénomènes étranges. Lorsqu’ils peuvent s’identifier à d’autres cas, les témoins sont plus aptes à nous partager ce qu’ils ont vécu ».
24% des observations faites par des personnes âgées de 35 à 49 ans
Les statistiques 2017 de l’AQU montrent que le mois de juillet a été le plus chargé en termes d’apparitions, avec 67 cas rapportés. Ce sont les habitants de Montérégie (région administrative du Québec) qui ont aperçu le plus grand nombre d’OVNIS en 2017, comme en 2015 et en 2016. Nul doute que les extraterrestres doivent trouver un intérêt particulier dans cette région.
Les observations faites par les témoins québécois sont le plus souvent des formes rondes et sphériques inconnues dans le ciel. Selon l’étude de l’AQU, c’est en général entre 21 h et 23 h que les observations sont faites. Et 24% des gens qui ont aperçu des OVNIS sont âgés de 35 à 49 ans, dont 33% ayant fait des études postsecondaires. Ce sont donc des gens en parfaite possession de leur esprit qui disent avoir vu des OVNIS dans le ciel québécois. E.T. serait-il réellement parmi nous ?
MYSTERY AS UFO HUNTER POSTS IMAGES OF HUGE SPHERICAL OBJECT IN FRONT OF THE SUN THAT WAS CAPTURED BY NASA CAMERAS
MYSTERY AS UFO HUNTER POSTS IMAGES OF HUGE SPHERICAL OBJECT IN FRONT OF THE SUN THAT WAS CAPTURED BY NASA CAMERAS
A huge blue sphere was picked up by cameras on the STEREO HI1 satellite
UFO hunter Pamela Johnson claims the Sun started reacting to the object
There are frames missing from the next two days but it’s now disappeared
Scientists and conspiracy theorists across the world have been left stunned after Nasa cameras picked up a mysterious blue sphere moving in front of the Sun.
Facebook user Pamela Jonhson, who lives in Mexico, shared the images from a link to Nasa’s website, claiming the Sun reacted to the object.
The images, taken from Nasa’s STEREO satellites which orbit the Sun, show the large spectacle in clear view – before it goes missing from other frames.
Scroll down for video
A huge blue sphere seen in front of the Sun by Nasa cameras has mystified scientists and sent UFO hunters into uproar
However, the object has now disappeared from view and has not been seen again
Pamela Johnson claims the Sun started reacting to the object on November 15, and there are several frames from the feed missing throughout the following days.
The images left internet users divided as to whether or not this was anything exceptional.
A YouTube account named mrfaithandphysics said: ‘It certainly does look exceptional and I’m stumped.
‘I’d say rouge planet, but we don’t see it moving and then it’s gone.’
The footage then goes grainy, with the mysterious object appearing to disappear from view
The images, taken from Nasa’s STEREO satellites which orbit the Sun, show the large object in clear view
Another, mrreg II, added: ‘I have downloaded the images from SECCHI HI1 and this is strange. This ‘anomaly’ can only be seen on images from 11.17, but there are missing several both before and after its appearance.
‘But just consider this: The light on the tallest ‘lightrod’ is the planet Mercury. This ‘anomaly’ seem to be behind it…. And Mercury is 4,880 km across…’
However, a more skeptical Mike Sovereign said: ‘ok if you ask me, nasa would never be so careless to allow something like this to reach the public . And it looks like something is projecting this.’ image in space , hallographic perhaps or project blue beam.’
The YouTube account boisedk added: ‘If it were a big deal the pictures would never see the light of day.’
While Earth is currently experiencing unprecedented manmade climate change, the planet has gone through extreme changes in climate throughout history. By studying how early human societies responded to these intense periods, scientists hope to gain a better understanding of how humanity at large responds to environmental instability. According to a newly released paper, we now know how Mesolithic humans dealt with erratic climate at the end of the last ice age: pretty damn well.
Star Carr is a Middle Stone Age archeological site at which people lived around 9,000 B.C. It’s located in what’s now North Yorkshire, England and over the past 15 years, different teams of archeologists have discovered heaps of artifacts that belonged to the ancient people who lived there. In a paper published Monday in Nature Ecology & Evolution a team of researchers announced that further excavation of this site and samples taken from the surrounding environment have revealed that 11,000 years ago this area experienced abrupt climate change. However, contrary to what was expected, the humans who were living there continued to thrive despite the fact they were living during a 100-year long cold snap.
One of the headdress found in the recent excavations.
“This result was quite astounding as we knew there were climate shifts of several degrees of annual cooling, big enough to change the local environment but they had no influence on the Star Carr residents,” study co-author and University of York professor Nicky Milner, Ph.D., explained in an accompanying blog. “These early Holocene pioneering populations were building house and lake structures, depositing headdresses that are an iconic feature of the site, and continuing their lifeways before, during, and after our climate shift.”
“For us, this went directly against a growing narrative of climate as a driver of change in many archeological records, including ones individual team members have worked on, and shows an amazing level of resilience and adaptation to the site and environment in these populations.”
Map of the palaeo-lake with sites marked around it: Star Carr is site 1.
Beginning in 2012, Milner and her team began a combined archeological and palaeoenvironmental project at the site. The goal was to both excavate for signs of human life and take environmental samples, steps that would hopefully reveal how climate affected Mesolithic humans. They drilled cores from the neighboring lake beds and trapped within these sediment cores was pollen, macrofossils, and isotopes — analysis of which revealed that the area had undergone fluctuating patterns of climatic and environmental change, including two episodes of extreme cooling.
These events matched an already established timeline: The first, occurring essentially when humans returned to the area after the last ice age, and the second when the humans were more established in the area.
Meanwhile, others on the team found undeniable signs of human activity: Evidence of houses, large wooden platforms built on the edge of the lake, huge quantities of bones, and heaps of artifacts, including elaborate antler headdresses, all buried in the wetland. After these were radiocarbon dated, they compared the age of the artifacts to the timeline of the cooling periods and discovered an overlap — the first cooling period may have slightly slowed down the progress of the humans, but the second period had “very little impact” on their society.
Sediment core taken from the lake.
This contradicts previous theories that extreme climatic events caused a crash in Mesolithic populations in northern England. The people in Star Carr, at least, were able to cope.
“Perhaps the later, more established community at Star Carr were buffered from the effects of the second extreme cooling event — which is likely to have caused exceptionally harsh winter conditions — by their continued access to a range of resources at the site, including red deer,” Milner explained in a statementreleased Monday.
“Putting this archeological data into the context of the climate and environment is very exciting and shows that we need to keep an open mind when thinking about the effects of extreme climate on early populations.”
Mars’ lack of water and of a magnetic field could be linked, new research proposes.
Image via Pixabay.
Despite being a pretty inhospitable place today, Mars used to have liquid water aplenty and an atmosphere. Taken together, these likely made the red planet not that unlike our own Earth — which is to say, ‘comfortable’. Sometime in the past, however, both the water and the air vanished. Our working theory is that it was caused by Mars’s magnetic field, which waned then disappeared roughly 4 billion years ago. Without it to insulate the planet, solar winds flayed it of its atmosphere, slowly turning it into the dry ball of dust and rock we see today.
Magnet..Oh…
It’s a compelling story, but there is one especially frustrating piece missing from it: what killed off the magnetic field? Last week, at the at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in Texas, planetary scientist Joseph O’Rourke presented a new theory which could fill in this missing piece. He believes that the disappearance of the planet’s magnetic field is connected to its missing surface water.
To the best of our knowledge, planets produce their magnetic fields through the churning of their molten, ferrous cores. Convection — where the heated part of a molten material rises to the top, to be replaced by the denser, colder part on top — keeps this metal moving. And just like a dynamo, where you have moving iron, you get a magnetic field.
O’Rourke’s theory is that an influx of hydrogen, sourced by the splitting of water moleculesdeeper into the Martian mantle, could have stalled this dynamo — and with it, Mars’ magnetic field. Convection relies on differences in density to keep material (in our case, molten iron) moving. But if a lighter material — and it’s hard to get lighter than hydrogen — settles relatively close to the bottom of the convection cell, it can block denser material from sinking back down. It clogs the system.
“Too much hydrogen and you can shut down convection entirely,” he said. “Hydrogen is a heartless killer.”
O’Rourke, from the Arizona State University in Tempe, worked together with Dan Shim, a colleague at the University, to determine where all this hydrogen could have come from. They believe it was sourced from water that was chemically locked in Martial minerals. While it would remain stable in the upper layers of the mantle, the incredible heat and pressures closer to the core could pull these water molecules out of their minerals, and then break them apart. The oxygen atom, being highly reactive, would go on to form new compounds — while the hydrogen atoms would build up near the core and stall convection.
This meddling hydrogen
So, was there enough water in Mars’ mantle for the job? The authors note that Mars’ crust is rich in olivine, a material that doesn’t bond very well with water, and so it remains relatively dry. At deeper levels, where there’s more pressure, this olivine transforms into the minerals wadsleyite and ringwoodite, which do hold more water. Deeper still, the mineral turns into bridgmanite and becomes dry again. According to the team, this bridgmanite layer should act as a buffer, keeping water away and insulating the convection cell. So far, the situation on (in?) Mars is very similar to that on Earth — the same minerals are involved, and there’s no reason to believe that they would behave differently on Mars.
However, there is one important distinction between the two planets — Mars’ mantle cooled down significantly, while Earth’s remains hot. Temperature plays a key role here because it’s the combination of high pressure at high temperatures that prompts the transition to bridgmanite and later keeps it stable. In a progressively cool mantle, like Mars’, the bridgmanite layer would shrink and eventually disappear altogether.
Whether or not this mineral survived in Mars’ interior depends on how large the planet’s core is. We don’t yet know how large it is, but NASA’s InSight Mars lander, scheduled for launch on May 5th, may find out.
One interesting implication of O’Rourke’s theory is that if hydrogen did clog up the magnetic field, it did so surprisingly fast — previous research suggests that Mars’ magnetic field disappeared quite rapidly, over 100 million years’ time.
For now, we’ll have to wait for InSight to launch, and see if the theory stands up to measurements taken in the field. Whatever the results may be, one thing is certain: Mars’ stubborn lack of a magnetic field is bad for business. Hopefully, this research will offer some insight as to how we can fix it.
The paper “Suppressing the Martian Dynamo with Ongoing Hydrogenation of the Core by Hydrated Mantle Minerals” has been presented at the 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, The Woodlands, Texas, on March 21, 2018.
Troublante coïncidence : un objet volant non identifié a été repéré par deux pilotes de deux avions de lignes américains différents. Les deux hommes survolaient le ciel de l’Arizona. Personne ne sait ce que c’était. Mais l’événement suscite évidemment bien des fantasmes.
- « Y’avait-il quelque chose au-dessus de nous il y a trente secondes ? » Voilà le message radio lancé par un pilote d’un Learjet se dirigeant vers la Californie (États-Unis), à 12000m d’altitude alors qu’il survole le désert d’Arizona
-« Négatif », lui répond un contrôleur aérien du centre de trafic aérien d’Albuquerque au Nouveau-Mexique.
- « Ok. Pourtant quelque chose nous a survolés! », lui rétorque le pilote.
Ce dialogue enregistré entre un pilote et un contrôleur du ciel a été publié, mercredi, par le Huffington Post américain. Les faits remontent au 24février dernier. Il était 15h30, heure locale.
Quelques minutes plus tard, le contrôleur du ciel demande à un autre pilote d’un Airbus d’American Airlines voyageant dans la même direction d’ouvrir l’œil sur ce qui se passe au-dessus de lui.
- « Oui quelque chose vient de passer au-dessus de nous en se dirigeant dans la direction opposée à la nôtre. On a vu une grande ombre », confirme, à son tour, le pilote de ce deuxième avion. Il y avait un grand reflet, je n’arrivais pas à distinguer ce que c’était, mais ce n’était pas un avion… »
D’autres pilotes sont intervenus dans la conversation. Ils émettent l’hypothèse d’un ballon Google. Mais le pilote d’American Airlines estime que « c’est peu probable ».
Aucune explication pour le moment
Plusieurs semaines plus tard, les autorités sont toujours perplexes, selon le New York Times. En dehors du témoignage et du rapport fait par les deux pilotes de ligne, cet événement demeure mystérieux pour l’administration américaine de l’aviation civile (FAA). À sa connaissance, aucun autre avion ne se trouvait logiquement dans les parages. « Nous entretenons des relations de travail étroites avec d’autres organismes. Quel que soit l’objet volant, un avion militaire, civil ou un ballon météorologique, nous sommes tenus au courant. Ce n’était pas le cas en l’occurrence », déclare un de ses représentants cité par le New York Times.
À 800 km de Roswell
Il n’en fallait pas plus pour que les hypothèses les plus farfelues soient émises. Certains évoquent le survol d’un appareil russe ou coréen compte tenu des tensions diplomatiques actuelles. D’autres thèses conspirationnistes estiment évidemment que le gouvernement américain cache la vérité sur l’existence d’une vie extraterrestre. D’autant que ces faits se sont produits à vol d’oiseau, à environ 800km à l’ouest de Roswell.
Souvenez-vous: le 2juillet 1947, un ovni aurait explosé en plein vol et se serait écrasé près de Roswell, au cœur du Nouveau-Mexique, aux États-Unis. Cette affaire, qui a été très médiatisée, constitue l’un des événements les plus controversés de l’histoire américaine. Elle a donné naissance à de nombreux livres, films et d’extravagantes thèses. Néanmoins, soixante-dix ans après, le mystère demeure. Et cette nouvelle mystérieuse affaire d’ovni fait de nouveau s’emballer la machine à fantasmes.
Tiangong-1 now appears brighter in our skies as the Chinese space station descends toward Earth this weekend. Astronomers are catching it! Their videos here, along with updated reentry predictions.
Still from a video shot early on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, by Brian Ottum. See the video below.
Experienced sky observers are doing their best to track China’s first space station, Tiangong-1 (Heavenly Palace 1), as it speeds across our sky on its way to a fiery demise this weekend. We know of at least two who have succeeded in this demanding observation. See their videos below.
astropicsdailyAs you may have heard, the Chinese space station Tiangong-1 will come crashing down to Earth this weekend. Here is my video of the bus-sized satellite from this morning. The camera was having trouble keeping up with Tiangong as it zoomed across the sky - you can see stars whip past. Taken March 28, 12.6UT. The space station is starting to dip into the atmosphere, 120 miles up. Friction could be starting to cause it to warm up and glow. Predictions have it burning up late Saturday night, but that could happen as early as Saturday morning or Sunday. We just don't know where or when. Chunks are likely to hit Earth, but probably the ocean. Video taken with Canon 5DmkIII, 10" F/5 reflector telescope, satellite tracking Paramount MX mount, remote control observatory located at Dark Sky New Mexico. #astro#astronomy#astronomia#astrophotography#astrophotos#APOD#cosmos
algolwatchMy app has it in our hood Sunday 6:41... think it'll last that long?
astropicsdaily@algolwatch 6UT on Sunday, which is 2am EDT, is currently the best forecast. But the uncertainty is about 24 hrs either side!!!!! We currently have no idea where or when. Hopefully better estimate on Friday evening.
brianm910Awesome! I was wondering if I could find it here and get a video of it.
The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome and Tenagra Observatories in Arizona provided an exciting livestream of their successful attempt to view Tiangong-1, also earlier in the day on Wednesday. Check this out! It’s really fun to hear Gianluca Masi‘s commentary and he searches for – and finds – the space station.
As of today (March 30, 2018) the spacecraft is at about 117 miles (188 km) in altitude. That’s down from about 134 miles (215 km) altitude on March 24. And it’s down from 155 miles (258 km) on March 7. Its orbit is clearly decaying as you can see if you follow the spacecraft’s descent here. The end will come more or less suddenly, due in part to changing conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere, which is why it’s so inherently unpredictable.
Have you been hearing specific reentry locations for China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, aka Heavenly Palace 1? I heard Michigan at one point, then Wisconsin.
Don’t believe these specific predictions. Experts are still saying reentry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (see map below). At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
Tiangong-1 potential reentry area. Map showing the area between 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south latitude (in green), over which Tiangong-1 could reenter.
Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011, and, originally, a controlled reentry was planned. Firing the craft’s engines would have enabled controllers to allow the craft to burn up (mostly) over a large, unpopulated region of the South Pacific ocean. Any surviving pieces would have fallen into the ocean. But, in March 2016, the Tiangong-1 space station ceased functioning. Ground teams lost control of the craft, and it can no longer be commanded to fire its engines. It is, therefore, expected to make an uncontrolled reentry … soon.
The spacecraft’s main body is approximately 34 feet (10.4 meters) long.
ESA has said that Tiangong-1 will “substantially burn up” in Earth’s atmosphere. Will pieces crash to Earth? Possibly. Will they crash in populated areas? It’s not possible to say, but the chances are small that any human being will be harmed, according to a statement from Aerospace, a research organization that advises government and private enterprise on space flight. Aerospace said:
There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground. Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over.
Aerospace also warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board.
Tiangong-1 is not designed to withstand reentry, as some spacecraft are. But it will mostly burn up when it falls, due to the extreme heat and friction generated by its high-speed passage through Earth’s atmosphere.
Tiangong-1’s predicted reentry as of March 29, 2018, via ESA.
Tiangong-1’s major goal was to test and master technologies related to orbital rendezvous and docking. One uncrewed and two crewed missions – executed by the Shenzhou (Divine Craft) spacecraft – took place during its operational lifetime. ESA explained:
Following launch in 2011, the Tiangong-1 orbit began steadily decaying due to the faint, yet not-zero, atmospheric drag present even at 300 or 400 km altitude [~200 to 250 miles altitude]. This affects all satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, for example.
Bottom line: China’s first space station will soon undergo an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. As of March 29, Aerospace Corporation was predicting April 1 ± 16 hours. At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
No One Can Explain Bizarre UFO Seen By 2 Separate Airliners In Arizona
No One Can Explain Bizarre UFO Seen By 2 Separate Airliners In Arizona
What just happened in the skies above Arizona? Two different airliners encountered an Unidentified Flying Object and the audio recording describing the encounter is so bizarre, that even the FAA is in awe.
The strange incident occurred above Arizona last month, but the audio recording was only recently released to the general public, offering solid evidence of a strange aerial sighting that no one, not even the FAA, has been able to explain so far.
The mystery encounter occurred on February 24, in Arizona airspace when the pilot of a Learjet 36 airliner operated by Phoenix Air Group contacted Air Traffic Control, after noticing something he couldn’t understand.
What pilots saw was beyond bizarre.
“Was anybody above us that passed us, like, 30 seconds ago?” the pilot asks, stammering a little, which you can hear in recordings originally obtained from the FAA by The Drive, excerpts of which are posted below.
“Negative,” the air traffic controller, stationed at Albuquerque’s Air Traffic Centre in New Mexico, replies to the pilot.
“Okay…” the pilot confirms, sounding unconvinced. “Something did.”
Check out the video recording in the YouTube video below:
Soon after the first pilot reported the mysterious object to traffic control, another pilot was heard discussing the object that had just flown past them.
In the recording, we can hear a pilot saying: “A UFO!”
To what the other pilot responded: “Yeah.”
After a couple of minutes, air traffic decides to contact another airliner which was following a similar route, an American Airlines A321 Airbus, telling the pilots to be on the lookout for anything that may pass above them in the next 15 miles.
Confused, American Airlines pilot is heard asking: “If anything passes over?”
Air traffic goes on to explain the situation to the pilots flying the American Airlines Airbus, and the Learjet pilot clarifies what he was able to see, flying above them.
“I don’t know what it was, it wasn’t an airplane but it was… the path was going in the opposite direction.”
Shortly after, the pilot onboard American Airlines Airbus 321 witnessed the same thing passing over them.
“Yeah, something just passed over us, like a… I don’t know what it was, but it was at least 2,000–3000 feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us.”
This creates more confusion among Air Traffic and the controller asks the pilot whether the object was “in motion or if it was just hovering”, but the Airbus pilot couldn’t answer.
“I couldn’t make it out if it was a balloon or whatnot, but it was just really beaming light or had a big reflection and several thousand feet above us going the opposite direction.”
Trying to get to the bottom of things, Air traffic asks whether its possible that what the pilots had witnessed was a Google Balloon, but the pilots responded “Doubtful.”
“We don’t have any comment beyond what you hear,” the FAA said in a statementissued to media outlets.
“Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area. We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons.”
Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Reportedly Planned For Animal Testing
Elon Musk’s Brain Chip Reportedly Planned For Animal Testing
This innovative—yet controversial—technology could allow humans to communicate through telepathy, have “superpowers” and solve some degenerative diseases of the brain. Furthermore, according to Elon Musk, these brain chips could help prevent Artificial Intelligence from taking over mankind.
However, the idea itself raises a number of questions which many experts can’t really answer.
Is it correct? Is it ethical? And should mankind begin fusing with machines?
Despite the fact we as a society may not have an answer for those questions yet, Elon Musk’s Neuralink is planning to conduct animal trials.
It’s a logical and necessary next step. Apparently.
If Musk’s Neuralink ever wants to connect human minds with machines, it will first have to be tested on animals, something that could soon happen according to Gizmodo, as Neuralink has requested from the University of California a permit to experiment with lab animals and build “a small operating room for testing and another area to house rodents.”
Furthermore, Neuralink is also looking for staff to work in San Francisco on “nanotechnology and next-generation microelectromechanical systems”.
“While many of our resources can be found in typical semiconductor process environments, we are highly interdisciplinary, and the usage often deviates from traditional semiconductor processing,” the listing says.
Microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, are fundamental tools for establishing brain-machine interfaces.
A calculation presented last month by Grand View Research projected that the market for these devices as medical implants could reach 57,000 million dollars by 2025.
This figure includes devices applicable beyond the brain, such as pacemakers.
However, Neuralink’s interest in MEMS is in line with Musk’s ambition to commercialize a chip that can help people with brain damage and, in his words, “prevent machines with artificial intelligence from overtaking us.”
As noted by Gizmodo, a spokesperson for Neuralink declined to comment on this story and Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the comments of the people who are currently working on Neuralink, Musk’s company is focusing on something known as ‘neural cord’, which is based on small brain electrodes that can one day be charged to enhance our capabilities.
Broadly speaking, Neuralink is a neuroscience company that plans to develop ‘cranial computers’.
The first step of the company will be to treat diseases such as epilepsy, major depression, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, but as noted by Musk, these implants could help us prevent AI taking over, something that Musk mentioned a few months ago saying that “Or humans are fused with machines, or artificial intelligence will make us irrelevant.”
Anil Seth, professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, explains the link between perception and reality. Seth believes reality as we know it comes from activity of our brain. Following is a transcript of the video.
Anil Seth: Is our reality just a hallucination that we all agree on?
WIRED Live
Anil Seth: How do we know that we experience the real world? In fact, we probably don't. Everything that we perceive, everything that we experience, is a result of the brain interpreting the sensory information that comes in in a particular way.
I'm Anil Seth. I'm a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex in the UK. Now you could say that all of our experiences are all hallucinated. It's just that whenever we agree about what's out there, that's what we call reality. Brain brings to bear its prior expectations about what's out there in order to interpret this massive, noisy, and ambiguous sensory information that it continually encounters.
Perception, instead of just being a reflection of what's actually there in the world, is always this active process of interpretation. It's easy to assume that we see with our eyes. In fact, we see with our brains. Our eyes are of course necessary, but what we actually end up perceiving is much more a product of how our brain interprets all this information from the eyes than the eyes being this window into an objective external reality. And when the balance is disturbed between how the brain interprets sensory information and what the sensory information actually is, well, that's when people start to see things that other people don't, and that's what we call hallucination.
When you look at a cloud, and sometimes you can see faces in clouds, now that's a kind of hallucination. Other people who will see things that really other people don't see, that's just a different balance that they have between how their prior expectations influence the sensory data that comes in. Another aspect of this is when you take things like psychedelic drugs. That also leads people to have unusual experiences, to see things that aren't there. Again, it doesn't mean that these things really exist. It just means that your brain is working in a different way so that its prior expectations come to dominate this sensory information.
We can see a number of things that happen in the brain on psychedelics. One of the things that happens is the brain generally becomes a bit more disorganized. Normally in the brain, different parts of the brain have activity that correlates. So we see all these networks in the brain with different areas active at the same time, and then they diminish their activity at the same time as well. How visual hallucinations in the psychedelic state might come about could be that in the psychedelic state, what you perceive is dependent more on the brain than the sensory data that's coming in through the eyes and the ears. And we have the opportunity now to try to characterize exactly how and why this happens.
But what we experience as being real is a construction of the brain. So when I experience a particular color, that doesn't mean that color exists out there in the universe, that a red mug is actually painted some color that exists independently of my mind and brain. No, red is something that my brain constructs in order to interpret visual information. This leads to the question, is anything real? Is anything really there?
Is de realiteit slechts een illusie? Deze neurowetenschapper denkt van wel
Is de realiteit slechts een illusie? Deze neurowetenschapper denkt van wel
De realiteit om ons heen is een voortvloeisel van onze hersenactiviteit. Dat zegt professor Anil Seth van de Universiteit van Sussex.
Hoe weten we dat we de echte wereld zien? Waarschijnlijk is de realiteit die we waarnemen een illusie, aldus Seth.
“Alles wat we waarnemen, alles wat we ervaren, is het resultaat van zintuiglijke informatieverwerking,” zegt hij.
We zien met ons brein
Perceptie is geen reflectie van de wereld om ons heen, maar een interpretatieproces. “Het is makkelijk om aan te nemen dat we met onze ogen zien, maar we zien met ons brein,” klinkt het.
Onze ogen zijn nodig om te kunnen zien, maar wat we daadwerkelijk zien is vooral het gevolg van de manier waarop ons brein alle informatie interpreteert die de ogen opvangen.
Om die reden zien sommige mensen wat anderen niet kunnen zien. “We denken dat de wereld om ons heen echt is, maar in werkelijkheid is het een constructie van het brein.”
Echt
Dus als je een bepaalde kleur ziet, betekent dat niet per definitie dat die kleur in het universum bestaat en dat jouw rode mok een kleur heeft die los staat van je geest en brein.
Rood is een kleur die je brein heeft aangemaakt om visuele informatie te interpreteren. En dit leidt tot de vraag: is alles wel echt? Is er überhaupt iets wat echt bestaat?
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Zo groot als een bus en 9 ton zwaar, maar waar en wanneer stort Chinees ruimtestation dit weekend neer op aarde? - HLN.be
Zo groot als een bus en 9 ton zwaar, maar waar en wanneer stort Chinees ruimtestation dit weekend neer op aarde? - HLN.be
Infografieken Nederland
WETENSCHAP Dit weekend zal het Chinese ruimtestation Tiangong-1, dat ongeveer zo groot is als een bus, met een rotvaart op aarde neerstorten. De kans dat je een van de brokstukken op je hoofd krijgt, is wel bijzonder klein: er is maar één kans op een biljoen.
“Wanneer en waar het station zal neerkomen, is niet precies te voorspellen”, weet Bart Hendrickx, die als ruimtevaartspecialist verbonden is aan Volkssterrenwacht Urania. “De laatste voorspelling is dat het zondag zal zijn. Zeker is dat de brokstukken ergens tussen 43° noorderbreedte en 43° zuiderbreedte zullen neervallen. Wij lopen dus helemaal geen gevaar.” Het gebied waar stukjes van het ruimtestation kunnen terechtkomen, strekt zich ongeveer uit van het midden van Italië tot onder Australië. Vrij groot, inderdaad. “Maar”, zegt Hendrickx, “Vergeet ook niet dat 70% van de aarde uit water bestaat. De kans dat je getroffen wordt door een blikseminslag is vele keren groter.”
Het ruimtestation, dat in 2011 gelanceerd werd en waarmee de Chinezen al in 2016 het contact verloren, is zo groot als een autobus. “Het weegt ongeveer 9 ton en is 10 meter lang. Maar er zijn al veel grotere objecten naar beneden gekomen: het Amerikaanse ruimtestation Skylab, dat in 1979 neerstortte, woog 80 ton of met andere woorden tien keer meer. Dat Tiangong-1 - wat Chinees is voor ‘Hemels Paleis’ - ongecontroleerd naar beneden zal komen, is geen ideaal scenario, maar ook dat is in het verleden nog gebeurd.”
Tiangong-1 zal neerstorten met een snelheid van 27.000 kilometer per uur, wat volgens Hendrickx véél trager is dan een meteoriet. Bovendien zullen de meeste brokstukken opbranden bij contact met de dampkring. “Als je toch nog een stuk vindt van het ruimtestation, kan je er beter afblijven: de temperatuur zal hoog zijn en in de tank kan ook altijd wat van de giftige brandstof achtergebleven zijn.”
REUTERSEen schaalmodel van het bewuste ruimtestation.
I suspect that a lot of UFO activity in the latter part of the 1940s in the United States had more to do with classified, military experimentation than it did with aliens. There is, however, no doubt that there was a significant number of UFO reports from that period which are not so easy to dismiss. In many such cases, UFOs intruded upon sensitive military/government airspace in the United States. In the latter part of the 1940s – and particularly so in 1948 – a curious phenomenon was repeatedly seen in the skies over New Mexico. They were strange, glowing balls of green light that seemed to take a disturbing amount of interest in the many defense, atomic, and military establishments that existed in the state at the time. A program designed to investigate the reports, which was given the name of Project Twinkle, was soon put into place.
Consider the following, written by Lt. Col. Doyle Rees of the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, on 25 May 1950. It was for the specific attention of Brigadier General Joseph F. Carroll, Director of Special Investigations, USAF:
“In a liaison meeting with other military and government intelligence and investigative agencies in December 1948, it was determined that the frequency of unexplained aerial phenomena in the New Mexico area was such that an organized plan of reporting these observations should be undertaken. The organization and physical location of units of this District were most suitable for collecting these data, therefore, since December 1948, this District has assumed the responsibility for collecting and reporting basic information with respect to aerial phenomena occurring in this general area.”
Los Alamos
And a large body of that so-called “basic information” was profound, to say the very least. A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum dated 31 January 1949 and titled Protection of Vital Installations, reveals the following: “During the past two months various sightings of unexplained phenomena have been reported in the vicinity ofthe Atomic Energy Commission Installation at Los Alamos, New Mexico,where these phenomena now appear to be concentrated[emphasis mine]. During December 1948 on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 20th, and 28th sightings of unexplained aerial phenomena were made near Los Alamos by Special Agents of the Office of Special Investigations; Airline Pilots; Military Pilots; Los Alamos Security Inspectors; and private citizens. On January 6, 1949, another similar object was sighted in the same area.” Moving on…
It’s intriguing to note that the atomic research facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee was also a magnet for countless close encounters with UFOs – in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. Consider, for example, the following official report generated on 2 March 1950 by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC):
“There is a radar station near Knoxville which has been in operation about 3 weeks. This radar station is being operated by station WROL of Knoxville. On 1 March at 2135 hours the station picked up an object 340 degrees and 18 miles from Knoxville, altitude 40,000 feet. Direction and distance put the object directly over [emphasis mine] Oak Ridge. AEC Security Division Chief at Oak Ridge checked with Smyrna Air Base, Nashville which reported it had no flight plan for any plane in that vicinity and altitude. On 2 March at 1105 station picked up object at 335 degrees and 18 miles from Knoxville, altitude 40,000 feet. AEC Security Division Chief checked with Smyrna Air Base with negative results.”
On the following day, 3 March, 1950, a further report surfaced: “At 2130 hours on 2nd March, radar station picked up two objects 310 degrees, altitude 80,000 feet, approximately 18 miles from Knoxville in general direction of Oak Ridge, moving in circular motion but in opposite directions.” And Oak Ridge continued to be a target for the mysterious intruders. An FBI teletype of 13 October 1950 refers to the detection of a veritable squadron of unknown objects tracked over the Oak Ridge installation at 11.25 p.m. on 12 October: “USAF radar installation at Knoxville picked up indications of eleven objects and perhaps more traveling acrosscontrolled areaof Atomic Energy installation at Oak Ridge [emphasis mine]…operators are experienced reliable personnel and radar set is in perfect operating condition.”
Oak Ridge
Perhaps most significant of all, is the following FBI document that offers the significant thoughts and conclusions of Oak Ridge personnel with respect to the UFO invasions in sensitive airspace:
“The opinions of the Security Division, AEC Oak Ridge; Security Branch, NEPA [Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft project] Division, Oak Ridge; AEC Security Patrol, Oak Ridge; FBI Knoxville; Air Force Radar and Fighter Squadrons, Knoxville; and the OSI, Konxville, Tennessee, fail to evolve an adequate explanation for OBJECTS SIGHTED OVER OAK RIDGE, TENNESSEE; however, the possibilities of practical jokers, mass hysteria, balloons of any description, flights of birds, falling leaves, insect swarms, peculiar weather conditions, reflections, flying kites, objects thrown from the ground, windblown objects, insanity, and many other natural happenings have been rejected because of the simultaneous witnessing of the objects with the reported radar sightings; because of the reliability of the witnesses; because of the detailed, similar description of the objects seen by different persons…”
Note that in the above-paragraph the words “objects sighted over Oak Ridge” were all typed in capital letters, further demonstrating the concern over such cases.
Not exactly outright invasions, but pretty damn close.
This is no April Fool’s joke. The dead-and-descending-out-of-control Chinese space station Tiangong-1 is predicted to crash somewhere on Earth on April 1st, plus-or-minus a day or two. This was probably not a good time for the recent U.S. government actions against China because its government and space agency hasn’t been too open about when or where the space debris might make its flaming landfall. The Chinese media site Global Times got an official to speak but only on the condition of anonymity and he said it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact reentry location now (March 29). In fact, it won’t be known until just two hours before it starts to fall. Thanks, China!
I thought you said I had two hours!
Fortunately, scientists at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research have no fear for their lives (from their government, at least) and are willing to share some signs that the end of the Heavenly Palace (the meaning of Tiangong) is near.
“[You will see a] series of fireballs streaking across the sky.”
Fireballs? That’s it? No explosions? Horns? Apocalyptic voices from the sky? That helpful hint is from Markus Dolensky, of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, a joint venture between Curtin University and the University of Western Australia. That’s not much from some of the world’s leading researchers in radio astronomy who are building the International Square Kilometre Array — the world’s biggest ground-based telescope array.
Maybe an astrophysics researcher is a better person to ask than an astronomer. The Daily Star checked with Alan Duffy, an astrophysics researcher at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, and here’s what he had to say.
“The international community doesn’t know what the craft is made of, and that makes estimating the danger more challenging, as hardened fuel containers could reach the ground while lightweight panels won’t.”
So, we need to be looking for fireballs of space station fuel, which we already know contains hydrazine – a highly-toxic propellant used by China in rocket fuels. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says short-term exposure to high levels of hydrazine – burning or otherwise — may cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma and cancer. Good thing we’ll be able to see it, right? Well, only if it’s burning. Otherwise, it’s a colorless liquid with an ammonia smell. You know … like ammonia.
Is there ANY chance this is an April Fool’s joke?
If we survive, the next time a space station crashes to Earth it won’t be so bad, according to Kenneth Chang of The New York Times.
“Indeed, space agencies like the E.S.A. are using Tiangong-1 as a learning exercise to compare their prediction models.”
April Fool’s Day was so much more fun when the biggest story was Taco Bell buying the Liberty Bell and renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Let’s hope we have a similarly good laugh about Tiangong-1 on April 2nd.
Today, I’m going to tell you the intriguing story of Project Horizon. It fell under the auspices of the U.S. Army, and had its origins in the latter part of the 1950s. The plan was to take the first steps towards constructing an installation on the surface of the Moon by the mid-1960s. The goal was for the base to be armed with nuclear weapons and which could be used to decimate the Soviet Union if the United States was hit by a sneak attack and the infrastructure of the nation was significantly destroyed.
After much preliminary discussion, it was in late March 1959 that the ambitious program was finally put into place. Overseeing many of the plans to create the secret base was Lieutenant General Arthur G. Trudeau. At the time, Trudeau was the Army’s Chief of Research and Development. Now-declassified files on Project Horizon demonstrate that Trudeau and his team estimated it would cost approximately $6 Billion to design, build and fully equip a base on the Moon. In a document titled “Project Horizon: A U.S. Army Study for the Establishment of a Lunar Military Post,” Trudeau wrote the following words:
“There is a requirement for a manned military outpost on the Moon. The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the Moon; to develop techniques in Moon-based surveillance of the Earth and space, in communications relay, and in operations on the surface of the Moon, for further exploration into space and for military operations on the Moon if required; and to support scientific investigations on the Moon.”
The program was indeed a grand one, a far-reaching operation designed to ensure that the control of outer space would fall into the hands of the United States and and specifically not into the hands of the Russians. In the wake of the publication of Trudeau’s report, plans were quickly initiated. One of those who was brought into the program was Wernher Von Braun – a scientist, and someone who had been a member of Germany’s Nazi Party and a member of the SS. He was an expert in the field of rocketry and someone who, after the Second World War, was brought to the United States under cover of a classified and controversial program called Operation Paperclip. Von Braun chose to assign an engineer named Heinz-Hermann Koelle to oversee Project Horizon. Koelle fought for the Nazis during the Second World War. Evidently, the Nazi-based backgrounds of the pair didn’t bother those working on Project Horizon. It certainly should have, though. But, I digress.
The initial goal was for the Moon base to be relatively small, which made a great deal of sense. After all, we’re talking about entirely new territory and revolutionary technology. So, the plan was to slowly make the base bigger and bigger as time went on. But, initially, it would be something akin to a North Pole outpost, with a staff of around just one to two dozen. Using the base as a strategic military facility, as well as a place in which the mysteries of the Moon and the Solar System could be carefully and secretly studied, ensured that America would have a significant lead over the Soviets – who were clearly a major threat at the time.
In fact, on this issue of a potential Soviet threat, the Project Horizon team gave serious and deep consideration to the possibility that the Russians might very well try and destroy the base – possibly even with Russian cosmonauts invading the base and armed to the teeth with high-tech weaponry. On the scientific side of things, a great deal of research was focused on ensuring that the base would have a plentiful supply of water and oxygen – which, of course, none could live without. Plans were initiated to have vast shuttle craft send endless supplies of water and food to the base – that is, until the staff became completely self-sufficient, which was seen as completely feasible. In theory, at least.
As for how and where, exactly, the base would be constructed, Project Horizon’s scientists were of the opinion that the best option would be to build it in an already-existing, natural crater. Such was the enthusiasm for the program, an estimation was made that the initial construction of the base could begin in 1965 – which was four years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the Moon. Project workers suggested that it might be wise to construct significant parts of the base underground, chiefly to protect it from not just the Soviets, but from natural space debris too, such a fragments of meteorites.
Although Project Horizon was seen as a major (and secret) program of the military, it was ultimately deemed to be way too far ahead of itself. The military concluded that the plans for the creation of Project Horizon to begin in 1965 were overly ambitious in the extreme and the program was cancelled. What was once on the horizon was finally no more.
“We are researchers at Johns Hopkins University working on a research study regarding the experiences of people who have had encounters with seemingly autonomous beings or entities after taking DMT.”
Kids, don’t try this at home (DMT is illegal in most countries), but if you already have seen aliens while on DMT, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine led by Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. would like for you to fill out an anonymous survey on your experiences and visions. You must be at least 18 years old, fluent in English and have taken a “breakthrough” dose of N,N-DMT before the alien experience.
“During your encounter, was there any communication (e.g., a one-way or two-way exchange of information) between you and the being or entity?”
DMT or N,N-DMT is N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, the tryptamine molecule often consumed as a psychedelic drug in ayahuasca, particularly in Amazon cultures, and sometimes referred to as the ‘spirit molecule’ because of the mystical experiences and dramatic hallucinations it causes. During the 1960s it was called the “businessman’s trip” because, when smoked or injected, the hallucinations arrive almost immediately and lasted just a short time – 5 to 15 minutes. That’s not the case when it is consumed in an ayahuasca beverage prepared by a South American shaman. Growing in popularity, these experiences can last up to 6 hours and the intense physical trauma (tremors, diarrhea, hyperthermia, sweating, muscle spasms) are considered to be a small price to pay for them. It’s this type of experience that most likely generates the alien visions Dr. Griffiths is looking for.
“Did the being or entity seem to have an emotional response to it’s encounter with the you (this could include being consciously unemotional or unreactive)?”
Stories of encounters with beings or entities while under the influence of DMT are not uncommon. A 2012 article in Psychology Today reveals that Rick Strassman, a leading expert on hallucinogenic substances and the coiner of the term “spirit molecule,” found that about half of the 60 volunteers who took DMT in one of his studies in the early 1990s entered “freestanding, independent levels of existence” that were inhabited by what volunteers described as intelligent “beings”, “entities”, “aliens”, “guides”, and “helpers” that appeared as “clowns, reptiles, mantises, bees, spiders, cacti, and stick figures.” According to the article, seeing beings and entities of these types seems to be unique to DMT — Strassman was unable to find anything similar in research reports on other psychedelic drugs.
“Did you ascertain a message, task, mission, purpose, or insight from your encounter with the being or entity (this could have been directly imparted to you or attained through your understanding of the nature of the being, etc.)?”
The questionnaire is extensive and obviously focused on determining if there is a link between DMT and actual alien encounters or the illusion of them.
Here are some other questions asked:
Did you acquire any predictions about the future through your encounter with the being or entity? Do you think that the being or entity continued to exist after your encounter? Was the being or entity all-knowing? How clear are your memories of the experience? Overall, from your current perspective, which of the following best describes where you think the entity existed? Do you believe that the experience and your contemplation of that experience has altered your fundamental conception of reality?
If you’re interested and qualified and would like to participate in the anonymous research, the questionnaire is located here.
Do you believe they will find a link between DMY and aliens – real or imagined? Do you already KNOW there’s one?
If it were to be proven that DMT was a gateway drug to an ET gateway, would you consider taking it?
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
More Strange Waves Of Colored Light Fill The Sky
More Strange Waves Of Colored Light Fill The Sky
Strange glows as what are being described as "strange waves of colored light" in the night sky a couple of hours or so after Sunset has been observed again.
Observers from Pennsylvania as well as observers from Athens Gorgia describe the colored sky waves of light that do resemble auroras,
They witnessed the strange glow off and on for 40 minutes or so in Georgia looking to the NW. All of the observers had never seen anything like this before!
UFO Over River In Minnesota Near Small Town, Photos, UFO Sighting New
UFO Over River In Minnesota Near Small Town, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 7-4-2011 Location of sighting: Nimrod, Minnesota, USA Source: MUFON #91099 This UFO was seen back in 2011, but reported today. The photo was taken in the city of Nimrod which has a sparse population of just around 67. UFOs are known to be frequently seen around areas where there are less humans. The UFO is a disk viewed from the side. The suns reflection off its metallic surface gives it away. Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Picture was taken on a 4th of July camping trip in 2011. Noticed the object when going through old photos this week.
An illustration of India's Chandrayaan-2 lunar spacecraft.
Credit: ISRO
Chandrayaan-2 is India's planned second mission to the moon, which is expected to launch in 2018. It is a follow-up mission from the Chandrayaan-1 mission that assisted in confirming the presence of water/hydroxyl on the moon in 2009. Chandrayaan-2 will launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India, aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket.
According to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the new mission will consist of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. The orbiter will perform mapping from an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles), while the lander will make a soft landing on the surface and send out the rover.
Development and science
Initially, ISRO planned to partner with Russia to perform Chandrayaan-2. The two agencies signed an agreement in 2007 to launch the orbiter and lander in 2013. Russia later pulled out of the agreement, however, according to a news report from The Hindu. The Russian lander's construction was delayed after the December 2011 failure of Roscosmos' Phobos-Grunt mission to the Martian moon of Phobos, the report stated.
Russia subsequently pulled out of Chandrayaan-2 altogether, citing financial issues. Some reports stated that NASA and the European Space Agency were interested in participating, but ISRO proceeded with the mission on its own.
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter will circle the moon and provide information about its surface, ISRO stated. "The payloads will collect scientific information on lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, lunar exosphere and signatures of hydroxyl and water-ice," ISRO said on its website. The mission will also send a small, 20-kilogram (44 lbs.), six-wheeled rover to the surface; the rover will move semi-autonomously, examining the lunar regolith's composition.
Terrain Mapping Camera 2 (TMC-2), which will map the lunar surface in three dimensions using two on-board cameras. A predecessor instrument called TMC flew on Chandrayaan-1.
Collimated Large Array Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS), which will map the abundance of minerals on the surface. A predecessor instrument called CIXS (sometimes written as C1XS) flew on Chandrayaan-1.
Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM), which looks at emissions of solar X-rays.
Chandra's Atmospheric Composition Explorer (ChACE-2), which is a neutral mass spectrometer. A predecessor instrument called CHACE flew on Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe.
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which will map the surface in radio waves. Some of its design is based on Chandrayaan-1's MiniSAR.
Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer (IIRS), which will measure the abundance of water/hydroxl on the surface.
Orbiter High Resolution Camera (OHRC) to examine the surface, particularly the landing site of the lander and rover.
The lander's instruments include:
Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), to look for moonquakes.
Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), to examine the surface's thermal properties.
Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA-Langmuir Probe), to look at plasma density on the surface.
The rover will carry two science instruments to look at the composition of the surface: the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) and the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS).
Landing near the pole
Chandrayaan-2's lander and rover are targeted for a location about 600 kilometers (375 miles) from the south pole, which would be the first time any mission touched down so far from the equator, according to a January 2018 article in Science magazine. ISRO plans to use the experience for more challenging missions in the future, such as touching down on an asteroid or Mars, or sending a spacecraft to Venus, IRSO chair Kailasavadivoo Sivan said in the article.
The lander is expected to last about one lunar day, or 14 Earth-days; it is unclear if it will revive after falling into the darkness of a lunar night. Its measurements of moonquakes would provide more data after the information collected by the human Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Science. Meanwhile, the terrain explored by the rover is of great scientific interest due to the rocks' old age; at 4 billion years old, scientists say the zone likely is composed of an ancient magma ocean.
While NASA is not directly participating in this mission, the measurements taken by Chandrayaan-2 could be a help for future lunar missions. That is because in late 2017, the agency was tasked by the Trump administration to return humans to the moon in the coming years.
Telescope Spots Doomed Chinese Space Station (Photo)
Telescope Spots Doomed Chinese Space Station (Photo)
By Hanneke Weitering, Space.com Staff Writer
Astronomers with the Virtual Telescope Project captured this view of Tiangong-1 on March 28, 2018, using the Tenagra III "Pearl" telescope at the Tenagra Observatories in Arizona. The image is a single, 2-second exposure captured at 8:35 a.m. EDT (1235 GMT).
With just a few days left before China's Tiangong-1 space station is expected to come crashing down on Earth, astronomers captured this incredible view of the derelict craft zooming through space.
The Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, together with the Tenagra Observatory in Arizona, used a robotically controlled telescope to provide live views of the space station during a webcast this morning (March 28). In this view from the webcast, Tiangong-1 is gleaming as the sun reflects off the spacecraft's surface and faint star trails streak across the background.
Capturing the out-of-control space station "was an extremely difficult task" due to the craft's speed, Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project said in a statement. Tiangong-1 was moving at about 18 degrees per minute (for comparison, your clenched fist held at arm's length is about 10 degrees wide). According to the satellite-tracking website satview.org, the station's speed was approximately 17,400 mph (28,000 km/h). [China's Space Station Crash: Everything You Need to Know]
"Our telescope honestly did out-of-this world work to track such a target," Masi told Space.com in an email. Tracking an object that swift "is something which very few observatories can do," Masi said, but the telescopes available at the Virtual Telescope Project and Tenagra Observatory were equipped for the challenge. The Paramount ME robotic mount installed on these telescopes is "the best hardware of this kind available in the world," the Virtual Telescope Project's website states.
At the time the image was captured, Tiangong-1 was orbiting at an altitude of about 137 miles (220 kilometers). That's around half as high as the International Space Station, which flies at an average altitude of 248 miles (400 km) above the Earth.
Tiangong-1's orbit is slowly decaying, and the station is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere sometime between March 31 and April 1, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). While most of the station will burn up in the atmosphere, some of its hardier components will likely survive the inferno and crash into Earth, experts predict. But there's no need to hunker down all weekend; ESA officials estimate that the odds of being stuck by a piece of Tiangong-1 are less than 1 in 300 trillion, and the station will most likely fall in the ocean.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com, or follow her @hannekescience.
Filer’s Files #12 – 2018 Spaceships Surround Earth - PART I
John Lenard Walson captured this video of a ship in space
Filer’s Files #12 – 2018 Spaceships Surround Earth - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: Admiral Lord Hill-Norton UFOs Are Real, Is Trump playing the Reagan Space Defense card? Space Objects Photographed, President Reagan’s Diary, Air Force to Defend Space, Thom Reed UFO Monument Park, Letter About Spaceship on NASA TV, and Thom Reed UFO Monument Park.
In special reports, this week’s files cover: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Texas..
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Iceland, Northern Ireland and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Reports
Admiral Lord Hill-Norton UFOs Are Real
Admiral of the Fleet Lord Hill-Norton wrote, “The evidence that there are objects which have been seen in our atmosphere, and even on terra firma, that cannot be accounted for either as man-made objects or as any physical force or effect known to our scientists, seems to me to be overwhelming.
A very large number of sightings have been vouched for by persons whose credentials seem to me unimpeachable. It is striking that so many have been trained observers, such as police officers and airline or military pilots. Their observations have in many instances… been supported either by technical means such as radar or, even more convincingly, by… interference with electrical apparatus of one sort or another….
Lord Hill-Norton, Chief of Defense Staff, Ministry of Defense, Great Britain, 1973; He became Chairman of the NATO Military Committee in 1974, remaining in that post until his retirement in 1977. Quoted from his foreword to “Above Top Secret” by Timothy Good, Morrow & Co’s Quill Books, 1988. _
Is Trump playing the Reagan Space Defense card? To what end?
Clarkson writes, “In a somewhat surreal scenario, President Donald J. Trump last week remarked on the idea of a “Space Force,” something he’d clearly been briefed on at some point. After telling an audience at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that “space is a war fighting domain,” Trump tossed off the idea “that “we may even have a space force.” Also the Air Force announced that the 200 man National Space Defense Center will operate 24 hours seven days a week to protect US satellites. It appears offensive forces would be needed conduct combat operations to protect the satellites. The following stories may show what in space.
Space Objects Photographed
Objects photographed in space several hundred miles above Earth include the ISS and are likely either human space craft such as Solar Warden or extraterrestrial craft. This is an alleged top secret aircraft or “space vehicle” which has some quite incredible abilities. The source of the information is from a former Area 51 employee who started making public disclosures in 1998 after retiring from his job as an avionics engineer. Huge Objects are regularly photographed in space above the Earth by John Leonard Walson.
In 2007, a John Lenard Walson invented a new gadget capable of extending his amateur telescope resolution. The new way to extend the capabilities of his eight inch Meade telescope to shoot his videos has enabled him to achieve optical resolutions – at almost the diffraction limit – not commonly achievable. The discovery was first publicized by Jeff Rense at “Mystery Space Machines Above. Black Ops, Star Wars Or ET? Or All Of The Above?” in December 2007.
Maybe some of Walson’s images are sensitive, secret US or Russian military Star Wars machines. On March 23, 1983, President Reagan proposed the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an ambitious project that would construct a space-based anti-missile system. The SDI was intended to defend the United States from attack from Soviet ICBMs . Maybe these ‘secret’ weapon platforms in space were actually deployed, which the US military has been rumored to have for at least 20 years. It’s clear the major space powers are far more heavily-invested in space than they will admit. Of course the major powers know what each other has in space. If they have been there for thirty years they are getting obsolete.
As a reflection of that reality, there has been a lot of recent talk about ‘anti-satellite’ weapons ‘needed’ by competing countries to ‘protect themselves.’ Most recently, China has been discussing its anti-sat programsand even threatened to destroy or disable all GPS satellites which over-fly Chinese territory. It’s anyone’s guess how many billions the US military and government have poured into lack ops. Walson’s video images and sounds may well show some of these advanced machines. So, what you see could be spacecrafts, and maybe even space ships, parked or stationed in orbit above the Earth. It is also within the realm of possibility some of these items might be products of non-human intelligence.
These are not just satellites and space junk? We are seeing large and very sophisticated spacecraft that rockets are unlikely able to put in orbit. Another propulsion system would be needed suggesting alien technology. Walson received the following comment about one of the videos:
“My congratulations on your superb astrophotography. MIT Lincoln Laboratory is the group which has built some of the things you are seeing. Much of what they do is what used to be the Star Wars project, which no doubt involves some of your objects.” MIT Lincoln Laboratory is federally funded and was sponsored by the Missile Defense Agency, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is known they examined crashed UFOs held at Wright Patterson AFB and likely back engineered these craft.
Here is what the International Space Station (ISS) looks like through the telescope and video camera lens of astro-photographer Walson. The dimensions of the ISS research is 356 feet (109 meters) by 240 feet (73 meters), or slightly larger than a football field.. It is the International Space Station… the ISS… take a look… Keeping that image and it’s relative size appearance in mind, now ask yourself, what is THIS? It looks at least 500 feet long or almost two footbsll fields.
So far his claims and disclosures have not been given the coverage which they undoubtedly deserve. He has hundreds of official USAF documents to back up his claims. If he is correct, as the evidence suggests, then the U.S. does have a secret space fleet consisting probably of dozens of 600 feet wide flying triangles, which can go to and from space with ease, travel at Mac 9 +in any direction. For over ten years John Walson has taken up close images of celestial craft in orbit around the Earth John writes, ‘I have so much more that I have not told anyone yet, I have very specially made UV spectrum telescopes and UV real cameras with very amazing footage. I would really like to share my telescope inventions in a TV show to use my equipment to solve famous historical Ufo or Sky space based events.And here is the actual video footage from which the above freeze frame is taken followed by some footage of something.
I’m saving to be able to bring my telescope to a dark area, no atmospheric distractions. I want to give you clear beautiful high quality video, and evidence from a remote location without freezing in the process, and without interference.
Walson claims he discovered that many “stars” in the sky are in fact HUGE structured objects – giant machines are “fixed” in the sky. With this new-found ability, he has proceeded to videotape, night and day, many strange and heretofore unseen objects in earth orbit. Walson claims that he can record them in plain daylight at noon and that he can record sounds from the machines in space. The resulting astro-photographic video footage has revealed a raft of machines, hardware, satellites, spacecraft and likely alien space ships which otherwise appear as ‘stars’… if they appear at all. These discs are seen hovering over thunderstorms appearing to collect lightning strikes perhaps to collect electrical energy.
These discs are seen hovering over thunderstorms appearing to collect lightning strikes perhaps to collect electrical energy.
Note: John has given Filer’s Files permission to show his excellent copyrighted images. Below is a possible space ship taken by John that President Reagan refers to.
In The Diary entry for Tuesday, June 11, 1985 (page 334) Reagan wrote:
Lunch with 5 top space scientists. “It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy etc. are like science fiction, except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such that we could orbit 300 people.”
Note: This would indicate a space ship at least as large as a 747 aircraft that is 250 feet long. It is likely much bigger to accommodate sleeping quarters, kitchen facilities, bathrooms, storage radar and weapons.The now grounded Space Shuttle held a maximum of eight people and even if all five took off fully loaded it would be impossible to put 300 astronauts in orbit. Apparently President Reagan revealed the existence of a highly classified space program that could accommodate hundreds of astronauts in orbit that would to be at least 500 feet long?
British hacker Gary McKinnon first hacked into NASA’s Johnson Space Center: He found a high definition picture of a large cigar shaped object over the northern hemisphere.
McKinnon later hacked into classified files of U.S. Space Command incorporated into Strategic Command on October 1, 2002. He found a list of officers’ names. Under the heading ‘Non-Terrestrial Officers. McKinnon stated that what he found was a list of fleet-to-fleet transfers’ ‘fleet-to-fleet transfers, and a list of ship names’. He said that after looking them up. He realized that they were not US Navy ships. What he saw made him believe that NASA was keeping a secret about an off planet space fleet. Gary McKinnon claims to have stumbled upon a secret list of up to ten space warships after breaking into NASA computer databases. A couple ships were named the USSS Curtis Lemay and USSS Roscoe Hillenkoetter. He claims it points to a secret American space program.
Air Force to Defend Space
Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee about the Air Force’s fiscal year 2019 budget on March 20, 2018, in Washington, D.C. “The Air Force budget for FY19 aligns with the National Defense Strategy,” said Wilson. “In our budget, there are really two bold moves and one continuing theme. The first bold move is the acceleration of a defendable space. The Air Force, Wilson said, needs to be able to deter, defend and prevail against anyone who seeks to deny the nation’s ability to operate freely in space.
“The United States of America is the best in the world at space and our adversaries know it. In any future conflict we expect that they will seek to deny us the use of space.
So what we’re doing in this budget is accelerating our ability to defend our assets on orbit,” she said.The Air Force operates 76 satellites, 30 of which are GPS and another 25 are communication satellites. According to Wilson, the service is investing in jam-resistant satellite technology for both communications and GPS capabilities. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) pointed to “China’s development of anti-satellite weapons and how they now claim to be able to take out the majority of our satellites within 28 hours, 48 hours rather at the beginning of a conflict.”
“The second bold move in this budget is the shift to multi-domain operations and that’s most visible in the way the Air Force plans to do command and control,” Wilson said. “There is also one continuing effort in our budget and that is to keep improving readiness to win any fight any time, that’s what you expect of your Air Force.” And the defense budget sequester “did more damage to the United States Air Force and our ability to defend the nation than anything our advisories have done in the last 10 years — we did it to ourselves,” Wilson said. “We cut 30,000 people out of the Air Force, reduced [the force] by 10 fighter squadrons, and [reduced] weapons systems sustainment,” she added. Problems with pilot retention can be tied directly back to sequester, Wilson said.
X-37b Space ship at Space Council Meeting.
Secretary Heather Wilson at the recent Space Council seemed to commit the US to more “offensive” weapons for space war “We have to be able to do something if things are going wrong,” Wilson said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Offensive” weapons will be needed. “We need the ability to create effects, defend ourselves and deter actions,” she said. Her comments are the latest in what is clearly a serious increase in attention — if not funding — for offensive space weapons.
Note: Who in space is are potential enemy?
F-l8s Intercept UFO
Commander David Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight were on a routine training mission 100 miles out into the Pacific when the radio in each of their F/A-18F Super Hornets crackled: An operations officer aboard the U.S.S. Princeton, a Navy cruiser, wanted to know if they were carrying weapons.
“Two CATM-9s,” Commander Fravor replied, referring to dummy missiles that could not be fired. He had not been expecting any hostile exchanges off the coast of San Diego that November afternoon in 2004.
Commander Fravor, in a recent interview with The New York Times, recalled what happened next. Some of it is captured in a video made public by officials with a Pentagon program that investigated U.F.O.s.
“Well, we’ve got a real-world vector for you,” the radio operator said, according to Commander Fravor. For two weeks, the operator said, the Princeton had been tracking mysterious aircraft. The objects appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet, and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering. Then they either dropped out of radar range.
The radio operator instructed Commander Fravor and Commander Slaight, who has given a similar account, to investigate.
The two fighter planes headed toward the objects. The Princeton alerted them as they closed in, but when they arrived at “merge plot” with the object — naval aviation parlance for being so close that the Princeton could not tell which were the objects and which were the fighter jets — neither Commander Fravor nor Commander Slaight could see anything at first. There was nothing on their radars, either.
Then, Commander Fravor looked down to the sea. It was calm that day, but the waves were breaking over something that was just below the surface. Whatever it was, it was big enough to cause the sea to churn.
Hovering 50 feet above the churn was an aircraft of some kind — whitish — that was around 40 feet long and oval in shape. The craft was jumping around erratically, staying over the wave disturbance but not moving in any specific direction, Commander Fravor said. The disturbance looked like frothy waves and foam, as if the water were boiling.
A video shows a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. It was released by the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
By Courtesy of U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE on Publish Date December 16, 2017. Photo by U.S Department of Defense.
Commander Fravor began a circular descent to get a closer look, but as he got nearer the object began ascending toward him. It was almost as if it were coming to meet him halfway, he said.
Commander Fravor abandoned his slow circular descent and headed straight for the object.
But then the object peeled away. “It accelerated like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he said in the interview. He was, he said, “pretty weird.”
Letter About Spaceship on NASA TV
Hi Major I hope you’re doing well. this is Mike Forte’ X State section Director Tampa Bay. I was watching the Earth Turn on the nasa Channel. I often do it beats the news. Its peaceful and breath taking. of course I’m always looking for a Star Wars Weapon to shoot up and try to nail .something as they did back in the 90s on film. I never see anything too weird until 7 30 PM, I see the nasa logo always on the right but for once it had a counterpart on the left side bigger and straight.. At this point I’m focused because as I watch I realize its moving and turning away from earth. I’m trying to figure out what kind of new graphic I was seeing. I would it was about 10 or 20 miles long. angular from rear to front darkish blue. It had to be 10 to 15 miles above the earth. As it turned away I could see the rear. This is no logo with a wide oblong like rectangular shape defined as it floated further away, getting smaller. I thought could be ours but no way unless the many years of stories we’ve heard are out of wack about what we do possess. Clean lines no windows or shapes definable..I have been involved in cases with these type ships as part of the criteria. Without question I watched one and dam near went blind watching it.
I did what I could to draw a pic someone else had to see it too. If someone didn’t believe in these ships this might change their mind from the sheer size alone. I’ve seen a lot of real stuff in my 45 years of investigating but NASA gets the award for slipping this one in. I can only wonder what the guys in the Space Shuttle saw and filmed. Thanks to Mike.
“Thom Reed UFO Monument Park”
Kerry McClure writes, There’s a new UFO destination in, New England – The Thom Reed UFO Monument Park, a waterfront park that now stands at the location of the 1st UFO incident officially inducted into the United States as historically true. The park, which represents modern-day history and a progressive effort to observe such events, is free to the public and located at the precise location of the incident.
The monument is nestled in front of a replica of the old covered bridge – the bridge the Reeds drove through that September night, just seconds before their extraordinary firsthand account. So much has been written, documented and filmed about this well-known incident, but only a small number are familiar with the more-grounded narrative and its modern historical significance, or how the park even came to be. On September 1, 1969, the lives of the Reeds, along with the members of the quaint town of Sheffield, were forever changed.
History was made the night, the family exited the Sheffield Bridge. It was a hot September evening at around 8 p.m., when, off to the left, a large illuminated light, encircling and concealing a dense disk-like shell lit up the river. This rounded self-contained light, was reported as ascending from the Housatonic River. Its shape, as per ABC News New York, was said to reference that of an upside-down Hershey’s Kiss, or even that of a teardrop.
The amount of water and winding river could have explained why a tail of light or a reflection of light was reported. The vessel was described to have climbed to about 40 feet, then proceeded in the same direction of their car, but traveling behind a tree line. The pace was estimated to be about 20 miles per hour. Nancy Reed, just 29 years old, pulled the car over as soon as there was a break in trees, to take a better look. At that point, the vessel also appeared to hold its position. All four Reeds recalled an unfamiliar change in air pressure, imitating that of being in the eye of a hurricane – and then – silence. Then suddenly, an eruption of crickets filled the air.
That night, reports from four townships, including members from a local country club, reported a craft moving in ways unknown to conventional aircraft. The local radio station, WSBS, aired reports from callers telling of a disk-shaped craft. Witnesses filed statements with the police department, and law enforcement became involved. Arguments had erupted in Nancy’s diner over the incident, and this would also generate additional documentation for validity of the event. In addition, the son of Sheffield’s Chief of Police was a witness, and now a pillar in the community; he, too, would give a notarized testimony to the state. Sketches of a UFO from children lined the school classrooms at Sheffield center in 1969.
So how did this Incident become deemed “significant and true” by historians, Governor Charles D. Baker and the Massachusetts Historical Society? It stems from the townspeople, documents, and the social standing of those involved. So who were the Reeds? From 1960 through 1962, Thom lived in the home of William Roosevelt, the grandson of President Roosevelt, in Cherry Hills, Colorado. His grandmother, Marian, was the governess for the Roosevelt’s, promoting the Reed’s interest in legislation. In 1963, the Reeds moved to a home in Sheffield, Massachusetts and bought the Village on the Green Restaurant. Thom Reed, went on to found the international model and artist group, Miami Models. Nancy Reed, was a radio personality for WKZE FM. Dr. Howard Reed, was an attorney, Ct. politician, and a college professor. All members of the Reed family, but Thom are pilots.
Howard would later run for office and soon become a Selectman, backed by Senator Christopher Dodd. On October 2, 1992, Bletchmen, Reed’s retained attorney, organized the United Nations Symposium on Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and Human Future. Coincidentally, 14 years later to the day, Howard lost his life under questionable circumstances. Howard who advocated space, science and the UFO topic, was beloved by the community. To preserve his standing, the Historians elected to examine the documents related to the historic 1969 incident. According to the Washington Times and the Roswell Daily Record, the key elements were: the radio station’s 1969 broadcast, Thom passing his Polygraph test, notarized witness statements, the CE classification and the incident had shown to alter the natural progression of the community. An historian in Western Massachusetts was also a witness to the 1969 incident.
Thom Reed, Peter Robbins, Travis Walton
With that the Reed UFO Incident made headlines in 2015 when it became the Nation’s first UFO encounter to be officially inducted into the archives of the United States, as “Historically Significant and True”. With its admission and State Citations by Massachusetts Governor, Charles D. Barker, and Lt. Governor Karyn E. Polito, and the Historical Society. Following this first of a kind entry into State’s antiquity, a 5000 pound commemorative Monument was unveiled. The induction and the unveiling of the UFO Monument graced the front page of the Boston Globe, and covered live by ABC News NY. Judge Kevin W. Titus later signed and sealed the records declaring them lawful documents. With the generous sponsorship of the International UFO Museum in Roswell, the grounds nearing the monument were expanded in 2017, to include benches and solar lights.
“The UFO Monument, brandishing its State seal and a Governors Citation is a powerful symbol of progress and modern day history. The fact that Sheffield has the monument and park at the precise location of the incident means it will forever be preserved. That, too, is profound. With that said, when the incident went before the census and was voted into state, it signified the state conceited other life forms exist and reside among us. This is considerable progress. I’m proud of our monument; I’m proud of our park, and proud to have been essential in establishing a foundation for disclosure.” – Thom Reed
Researchers have discovered 15 new planets around cool stars known as red dwarfs, and one of those planets might be able to host liquid water on its surface.
In a new study, the researchers combined space telescope data with follow-up ground investigation to observe several red dwarfs, which are dim stars that weigh 7.5 to 50 percent the mass of the sun. The team spotted three exoplanets, each slightly larger than Earth, around red dwarf star K2-155, located 200 light-years away. The outermost planet of the system was a particularly interesting finding, as it had a radius about 1.6 times that of Earth and may be within this star’s habitable zone, the researchers said. A star’s habitable zone is the region where orbiting planets could be the right temperature to retain liquid water.
The team used observations from the NASA Kepler spacecraft’s second mission, K2, and ground-based telescopes such as the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) in Spain to gather data on the 15 exoplanets, according to a recent statement about the research. To determine if K2-155’s outermost planet, K2-155d, could have water on its surface, the team modeled what’s known about this world in a three-dimensional climate simulation.
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Filer’s Files #12 – 2018 Spaceships Surround Earth - PART II
Filer’s Files #12 – 2018 Spaceships Surround Earth - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Alabama Radar
Childersburg — A couple were outside stargazing and noticed a solid “soft” orange orb moving slowly to the northeast. on November 10, 2017. The silent object changed to a V shape and then rapidly moved away and was lost. The object was only visible for 30 to 45 seconds flying 500 to 1,500 feet above the ground. The lights were solid and never flashed. The object was described as bigger than a 747 with solid lights. The witnesses stated that not much air traffic is usually in the area. The male witness is a police officer and an army veteran convinced that this was no ordinary aircraft. The witness contacted the local FBI office but the FBI took no action.
The above radar map does not depict what the witness saw. The witness saw the object move to the northeast at 10:25 PM. The above map does not show any returns at that time. The map shows that a known aircraft was moving to the east-southeast at around 105 MPH at 10:32 PM. This aircraft was present several minutes after the witness’s sighting. The map also shows 2 unknown craft (one moving to the southwest at 100 MPH and the other to the west-northwest at 100 MPH). These craft were on the radar screen at 10:19 to 20 PM CST. The witness only saw the craft for 30 to 45 seconds. The absence of radar returns does not negate the witness’s sighting as there may be an error in time. UFO’s don’t always show up on radar. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Arizona Lights
Tempe— I have never witnessed or seen anything like this before in my entire life on March 18, 2018
I saw a series of very bright aligned glowing orbs, very unexpectantly. I saw multiple embodiments of UFOs. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Sedona— Over the St. Patrick’s Day holiday weekend on March 18, 2018, I took some pictures of the surrounding mountains.
Later after looking at the pictures I found these 2 photos that have 2 strange lights (star burst) on them. Thought I would share maybe someone else captured these also.
The photos are taken with my phone, outside behind the Sinagua Plaza (320 AZ-89A) on the second floor. They were taken on March 17, 2018 at 11:57am and 11:58am. Let me know what you think.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
California Object
Fontana— I was working on my work inside my home when I wanted to check if it was overcast outside (it was common March to rain in Fontana). I look to the left and I see a hovering object shaped similarly to a blimp. Yet, there was something odd about this object. It had no reflection of light whatsoever, and was black and dull in color. It was located southward, and appeared to be circling very slowly in San Bernardino county.
It was very visible, so I decided to grab my phone and take pictures of it. I first I doubted it was a UFO since it occurred during the daytime but I began to suspect. It lasted for 10 minutes, it was gone.. Note: Object is possible blimp. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Colorado Lights
Colorado Springs –Vacationing with friends and spouse at Cheyenne Mountain resort. My friend pointed out a weird hovering light in the sky. When I looked to where he was pointing I pulled out my iPhone and began recording it. Shortly after a 2nd orb materialized and they simultaneously got brighter and slightly larger.
There was a lake between the orbs and myself and the lights were reflecting off the water. The lower light suddenly disappeared and another orb appeared so there were 3 visible orbs. Every orb held its place in the sky with no apparent descent or change. This went on for over two minutes, so I returned to the fire pit, and then all of the orbs disappeared. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Square
Ocala — While working, I spotted a square object about half the size of a 1300 square foot house about a mile away. Flying not slow, not fast it made a 90 degree turn.
Couldn’t believe what I was seeing that I asked 2 old ladies in the neighborhood if they could actually saw what I was seeing just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. They looked and said. “They couldn’t believe it either and were going him to go look on the internet to see if anyone had posted anything about it. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Michigan Lights
Coldwater — Sighting at 6:15 am on February 26, 2018 as I was heading east on Garfield Road. I glanced to the south and my eyes saw moving lights. I pulled over and managed to snap a clear photo. I saw 4 lights and the photo captured 3 of them in formation.
Sighting 2 at 6:15 am on March 15, 2018, I was heading east to work and saw roughly 11 in the same area. I pulled in and managed to record 3 separate videos. In the videos they are flying around in formation moving rapidly around each other making different formations. They all came together and formed a V pattern and slowly headed north, until they reached Garfield Road and turned south flying out of sight. On March 17, at 6:15 am I took a video a Flying V and changing shape. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Floodlight
Freehold — In February a floodlight penetrated through the ceiling of a home. At first it was just a tiny light but expanded to the size of a waste can or large enough that a human could fit inside. The light was very bright and seemed to be searching around the bedroom for several minutes. A husband and wife were in bed, but the light missed them. It then retrieved up through the ceiling not leaving any marks. Outside the house the immediate area was lit up. No craft were visible..
Pennsylvania Circle of Lights
I couldn’t sleep. Just sat and watched starry sky with Binoculars and a Tasco telescope. Saw star like objects which appeared to be glimmering orbs (could not get photos of them) but pointed camera-Sony cyber shot 7.2 megapixels and shot pictures at random.
Don’t know what the “light” things are and could not see the craft(s) until viewed photos.
Sky, itself is very interesting when pictures are zoomed for detail. All photos taken around 4 or 5 am looking out window. Camera set to ISO (high sensitivity) with no flash and zoomed. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Texas Triangle
Little Elm— I am reporting more than one UFO, I witnessed 3 different aircraft on March 8, 2018,t while getting food in my car. I was driving when I saw an intense huge light hovering through the trees. Once I grabbed my camera I could see little details of this craft. Without looking trough the camera it looked like a huge silent blob of light flying around the neighborhood. The way this craft was moving I strongly believe this is definitely not human made,
I have seen airplanes pass where I live during the night and I know how they look and sound. One the video I was able to include the other air craft. What is also strange is: I don’t know if they were aware of me filming them but every time I tried to get closer and a better look, they went behind me and hid behind tress and buildings. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Austria Object
Graz — I was watching out my window an object was hovering above the hills near a power station. I took a image. I could see clearly on its right side windows. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. You can clearly see the terminator of light and shadow. The shadow was on the right side of this hovering object. The light side on the left. There where the windows were. My thoughts turned around. And I thought ,how long did they hovering there? Do they observing me? Was I too ,been abducted? Without Knowledge? Or to reminding it? Anyway the image speaks for itself. I guess. Thanks Mike. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Belgium Object
Beringen— My brother was outback using his telescope while I was watching TV. It was pointed to the western night sky. I was 13 or 14 years. The sky was clear. He suddenly called me in his excitement and asked to come out. I went out his direction as my brother asked me to look through the viewfinder.
I witnessed the UFO moving down and sideways in a zigzag pattern to accelerate with an immense speed to the right and out of the view field. This couldn’t be an insect as it would have been a blurry light spot. The object was well defined in shape: a bright orange/yellow oval on its side with a sharp edge. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Cylinder
Bridgetown— On a perfect summer day, Saturday August 5, 2017 around 4 pm, my husband and I were sitting in our backyard and my husband asked me ”what’s that thing up there? do you see that?” We saw, hovering silently above us in the blue sky, a huge white cylinder shape object. This is my third sighting of a UFO.
It felt to me to be a heavy object as it was so big. We had time to slowly drink a whole glass of lemonade before it became hidden to us by the tree tops. It was perfectly snow white color as the sun was shining on it. We did not see any wings, or windows, or engines. I remember losing my sense of hearing for less than a minute. As I watched it, I felt peaceful and very happy. A couple ran in the house to tell us to come see the ufos above the trees! We watched for 20 minutes the same cylinder shape object hovering-then disappearing. Thanks to MUFON CMS
France Lights
Gaillac — This is a translation of my report to the GEIPAN, the French UFO report center. On November 27, 2017, at 6:27 PM, I’m going to meet my brother at the car-pool at the Gaillac exit of the A68 highway. He comes from his school at Albi by bus at 6:22 PM, and he shares with me an observation that troubled him when waiting for me. A light in the sky made very fast movements: up- and down several times, with a difference in height of about 50 meters, with 1-2 seconds for each path. In jest I said to him “you have witnessed a UFO brother!” But in the hours that followed, I was less jester.
At the bridge before Leclerc (a French Wal-Mart), we see the object in the sky on the right. it passes as on top of us. At 7:35 PM, we saw it again. Thanks to MUFON Thanks to MUFON CMS
Iceland Lights
I was messing around on Google earth and stumbled upon this on March 13, 2018. The very bright lights coming from it is what caught my eye. At first I thought it was some kind of sea animal but haven’t been able to spot another one anywhere one Google earth or maps.
When I first spotted it I was kind of taken back by it and grow even more taken back by it as I haven’t been able to figure out what it is. It’s still on Google earth and maps so you can go look at it for yourselves. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Northern Ireland
Four photos plus four photos zoom on December 15, 2017, at 7:45am.
When shooting Christmas a street in Northern Ireland.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Belfast — My husband and I were standing at my front door this morning taking pictures of chemtrails above my house at around 11:35am on March 20, 2018.
Later when I looked back at the pictures we had taken I noticed this small pink dot in the pictures.
When I zoomed in I realized this object had strange lights that seem to be changing formation could someone please have a look at my pictures and tell me what they think this could be as I’m intrigued. Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK/England Orb
I was in London filming planes. I only saw the orb after viewing the footage of the plane that is in the video on January 7, 2018.
The orb appears to ascend extremely quickly appearing only briefly as it seems to slow down. I’ve seen and filmed 7 or 8 other UFO events in this same location in 2 years.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
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Passenger spots 'UFO' from plane window
Passenger spots 'UFO' from plane window
Kristine Tarbert
A passenger has captured what appears to be a UFO flying alongside his plane while travelling to Athens, Greece.
Kerry Forides, filmed the unidentified object from his plane seat while travelling over the Aegean Sea on March 28.
The footage was then shared on Youtube and on his Facebook page
"It appears to be flying away at right angles from our commercial jet and somehow without either of us appearing to turn we end up almost following it," he wrote alongside the video.
Kerry spotted the object from his plane window.
Photo: Youtube
He then also posted a status on his Facebook sharing an article, which covered a UFO sighting in Switzerland claiming it was actually military jets even though the air force has not confirmed anything.
Kerry said there were striking similarities between what he observed during his flight and what was featured in the article.
A witness filmed a strange flying object in the sky over Florida
A witness filmed a strange flying object in the sky over Florida
Video of a UFO was taken on the beach.
The author of this video Eric Kipker does not claim with absolute certainty that he was able to remove the alien ship, however, over the Gulf of Mexico that night stuck do something fantastic and inexplicable (see video), which does not like earthly aircraft Esoreiter.
And it is a miracle in that hour was observed by hundreds of eyewitnesses of the resort town of Panama city beach, Florida, no wonder that stuff about this soon became available leading UFO organizations in the United States. Here he writes about it himself Eric Kipker:
“At that moment I was just admiring the sunset over the sea seemed a fantastic picture. And suddenly this picture someone added a little bit of science fiction, UFO, reminiscent of the appearance and behavior of the alien ship. Naturally I was shocked by this event, but managed to remove on video it is a unique heavenly view.”
Ufologists have confirmed the authenticity of the footage however they are confused, what is this apparatus hangs over the Gulf of Mexico, it is possible that he may be just a war toy, a drone or anything else – it is the earthly. But UFO is very similar to the apparatus of the aliens.
So to exclude it from the list of extraterrestrial objects is not, need more data that experts in this field collect. Waiting for new posts about it…
(NEWSER) – A tiny skeleton long rumored to be some kind of alien-human hybrid is actually the body of a stillborn baby girl, researchers say—and the finding has caused outrage in Chile, where the body was dug up near an abandoned Catholic church in 2003. Chilean scientists say it appears that the body was illegally exhumed and smuggled out of the country, making the resulting research deeply unethical, the New York Times reports. The body of the girl, who suffered from severe genetic mutations and bone deformities, ended up in the private collection of Barcelona entrepreneur Ramon Navia-Osorio, who heads an organization for UFO research. Samples were provided to American researchers who reconstructed the genome of the girl, who'd been nicknamed Ata.
Chilean science groups have urged the Genome Research journal to send a message on ethics by retracting the Ata study on the grounds that it's based on the results of grave robbing. "Could you imagine the same study carried out using the corpse of someone's miscarried baby in Europe or America?" the Chilean Society of Biological Anthropology said in a statement. The American researchers are defending the study, saying it has countered claims the skeleton was that of an alien, though they agree the body should be treated with respect. "We now know that it's a child," Stanford University professor of microbiology and immunology Garry Nolan tells the San Jose Mercury News. "I think it should be returned to the country of origin and buried according to the customs of the local people."
Two airline pilots traveling over Arizona claim they were passed by an unidentified flying objects while flying at over 30,000 feet in the air. Both planes reported the sighting and now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released a radio broadcast of the out-of-this-world incident.
For a seemingly simple fact, the number of organs in the human body is surprisingly controversial. Though the human body hasn’t changed much since modern humans emerged, our total number of organs — or what we call organs — has. A couple of years ago, the number was 78. At the end of 2016, doctors nudged the number up to 79. On Tuesday, scientists announced they’d found the 80th: a network of fluid-transporting vessels that span the entire body called the interstitium. But it has left some people familiar with human anatomy scratching their heads. The interstitium is nothing new.
In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports, doctors propose that the interstitium is the biggest organ in the human body by volume. It’s described as a fluid-filled space, supported by a lattice of collagen fibers, that runs throughout the human body, both within other organs and between them. They don’t call the interstitium an “organ” in the paper, but they’ve referred to it as an organ in interviews with the press, causing some confusion.
This figure from the study shows the interstitium, fluid filled spaces supported by collagen fiber bundles.
At first glance, it seems like they’re just talking about connective tissue, which has long been characterized as the broad class of tissues that support other tissues and organs (some specialized connective tissues are bones, blood, and fat).
What’s new in this study is that the authors are arguing that a specific type of connective tissue is connected within a greater network — the interstitium. This organ, the authors say, may form a protective layer around other organs. Which, admittedly, is huge, if true.
Here’s the summary they provide in their abstract: “In sum, we describe the anatomy and histology of a previously unrecognized, though widespread, macroscopic, fluid-filled space within and between tissues, a novel expansion and specification of the concept of the human interstitium.”
Collagen fibers support the fluid-filled channels that make up the interstitium.
The obvious question is why it took doctors so long to identify the interstitium in the way they just did, and the answer is simple: They just weren’t looking at it right. Previous researchers mischaracterized the connective tissue, the study’s authors say, because once it’s removed from the body for examination, all the fluid flows out, leaving something that looks merely like solid layers of membranes rather than the fluid-filled pockets and channels befitting an organ.
Though some doctors had recently noticed the reticular (that is, net-like) pattern of the interstitium, no one had successfully found a way to sample it. To get past this obstacle, the researchers devised a way to examine bile duct tissue samples obtained during surgeries without losing the structure of the fluid-filled channels. Removing the tissue, they rapidly froze it to retain the reticular structure of collagen fibers and fluid-filled chambers, which are described in the paper.
Their examination revealed that the tissues “are compressible and distensible and may thus serve as shock absorbers.” Furthermore, the channels connect to the lymphatic system, a central part of the human immune system, suggesting it could play a role in immune function. Since it’s a fluid-filled network, it may even function as a highway for cancer cells to travel through the body — a useful map for doctors wanting to understand how cancers metastasize and how to prevent it.
At the moment, though, the implications of this study are far from settled. The truth is that it will require a lot more research to understand what the role of the organ — if it is an organ at all — in the human body is. As The Daily Beastreported, the researchers had the paper rejected more than half a dozen times before Scientific Reports accepted it, so it’s clear that this discovery is a controversial one in the scientific community. That being said, the journal it found a home in is not a fringey rag. As with any medical discovery, time will tell us whether it actually is a discovery.
Abstract:Confocal laser endomicroscopy (pCLE) provides real-time histologic imaging of human tissues at a depth of 60–70 μm during endoscopy. pCLE of the extrahepatic bile duct after fluorescein injection demonstrated a reticular pattern within fluorescein-filled sinuses that had no known anatomical correlate. Freezing biopsy tissue before fixation preserved the anatomy of this structure, demonstrating that it is part of the submucosa and a previously unappreciated fluid-filled interstitial space, draining to lymph nodes and supported by a complex network of thick collagen bundles. These bundles are intermittently lined on one side by fibroblast-like cells that stain with endothelial markers and vimentin, although there is a highly unusual and extensive unlined interface between the matrix proteins of the bundles and the surrounding fluid. We observed similar structures in numerous tissues are subject to intermittent or rhythmic compression, including the submucosae of the entire gastrointestinal tract and urinary bladder, the dermis, the peri-bronchial and peri-arterial soft tissues, and fascia. These anatomic structures may be important in cancer metastasis, edema, fibrosis, and mechanical functioning of many or all tissues and organs. In sum, we describe the anatomy and histology of a previously unrecognized, though widespread, macroscopic, fluid-filled space within and between tissues, a novel expansion and specification of the concept of the human interstitium.
VREEMDE RODE LUCHTEN ZOALS DEZE IN DE OUDHEID VOORKWAMEN...
VREEMDE RODE LUCHTEN ZOALS DEZE IN DE OUDHEID VOORKWAMEN...
Vaak vinden we antwoorden voor het heden en onze nabije toekomst in het verleden, want alles is een cyclus en bepaalde processen blijven zich herhalen.
Door de gloed van de Verwoester was de aarde gehuld in een roodachtig licht. Het land was platgeslagen en verwoest door enorme hagelstenen die neer beukten op alles wat stond.
Het bovenstaande is een klein stukje uit de Kolbrin bijbel. In een eerder artikel schreven wij al over de herkomst van dit werk:
Als we dan uiteindelijk terechtkomen bij iets wat op geschreven documenten lijkt, dan zien we naast de kleitabletten van de Sumeriërs iets wat de Kolbrin Bijbel wordt genoemd. Het is een verzameling van oeroude teksten die vertaald zijn. De herkomst is het oude Egypte en daarna komen we ze weer tegen in de Middeleeuwen.
De manuscripten zouden gered zijn tijdens een brand in het klooster van Glastonbury Abbey in 1184. Er gaat zelfs het gerucht dat de beroemde Nicola Tesla enkele van zijn wijsheden haalde uit de Kolbrin Bijbel. Deze bestaat uit in totaal elf boeken, waarvan men zegt dat de eerste zes geschreven zijn door Egyptenaren ten tijde van de Exodus. Het boek is nooit toegankelijk geweest voor het grote publiek, maar werd altijd geheimgehouden bestemd voor een select groepje mensen. Tegenwoordig is er een gedrukte versie beschikbaar via het Culdian Trust.
Deze Kolbrin bijbel beschrijft in detail de komst van de Verwoester, oftewel de planeet Nibiru of Planet X. In die bijbel staat onder andere het volgende:
De plaag waarde door het land, de rivier was bloedrood en overal was bloed. Zij die dronken van de rivier moesten onmiddellijk overgeven. Het stof beet zich vast in de huid van zowel mens als dier.
Door de gloed van de Verwoester was de aarde gehuld in een roodachtig licht. Het land was platgeslagen en verwoest door enorme hagelstenen die neer beukten op alles wat stond. Ze kwamen naar beneden in hete buien en achter hen aan kwam een soort vreemd gloeiend vuur dat over de aarde liep.
Naarmate Nibiru verder door de ruimte reist, sleurt het als het ware een enorme wolk van ruimtepuin achter zich aan bestaande uit gassen, stenen, rotsen en manen, evenals een enorme wolk van geladen rode roestig stof. Wanneer je daar vanaf de aarde naar kijkt, dan lijkt dit bloedrood. Tijdens de passage van de planeet komt deze wolk dichter in de buurt van de aarde en raakt de enorme staart onze planeet als het ware, waardoor dit roestige stof op aarde terecht komt en de luchten en het water een bloedrode kleur geeft.
Het is ook deze wolk die wij nu regelmatig waarnemen in de vorm van bloedrode zonsondergangen en rode luchten (zelfs 's nachts). Deze rode stofwolk wordt ook door de wind verspreid en zorgt onder ander ook voor bloedrode zandstormen en doet het water op bepaalde plekken eveneens bloedrood kleuren.
Het is niet alleen de Kolbrin bijbel waar deze rode stofwolk wordt beschreven, het komt onder andere ook voor bij de onderzoeker, auteur en goede vriend van Einstein, Immanuel Velikovsky. In zijn boek uit 1950, Werelden in botsing, staat onder andere het volgende:
"Eén van de eerst zichtbare tekenen van deze ontmoeting was het roodkleuren van het aardoppervlak, veroorzaakt door dun stof van roestig pigment. In de zeeën, in de meren en de rivieren zorgde dit pigment voor een bloedrode kleur van het water (pagina 64).
Onze planeet ging dieper in de staart van de komeet. Het stof was de voorbode van het grind (pagina 67).
Net zoals de bekende astronoom Carlos Muñoz Ferrada ging ook Velikovsky ervan uit te maken te hebben met een niet normale planeet, maar een soort komeet/planeet (cometa planeta).
Met al het bovenstaande in het achterhoofd kijken we even naar een aantal gebeurtenissen afgelopen week.
Afgelopen weekend kregen wintersporters in Rusland, Roemenië, Bulgarije en nog een aantal landen te maken met oranje sneeuw. Dit wordt dan verklaart door meteorologen als oranje zand afkomstig van zandstormen in de Sahara.
Maar, deze stormen doen zich niet voor in de ruimte en velen vragen zich dan ook af hoe het kan, als het Sahara zand zou zijn, dat de lucht bij het ruimtestation ISS bloedrood gekleurd is.
Niet alleen rode luchten worden in verband gebracht met de komst van de planeet Nibiru, maar ook paarse zoals wij in een eerder artikel schreven.
Enkele dagen later is de rode gloed bij het ruimtestation veranderd naar een paarse gloed, zoals te zien in de volgende video: Zandstormen komen op die hoogte niet voor. Is er een andere logische verklaring of zien we in de ruimte bij het ISS concrete tekenen van de nadering van Nibiru?
A B-21 Raider Combined Test Force patch has been put up for sale on Ebay. If the insignia is authentic it would be the first indication that such an outfit has been established to support the new stealth bomber's development. It would also be yet another indication that the stealth bomber's development is proceeding swiftly and it fits with recent comments made the of flight test operations at Edwards Air Force Base who noted that his staff "will be testing it here in the near future."
Its basic design consists of yellow ring with black borders and the phrases "B-21" and "Combined Test Force" around a central design. In the middle there is a cloaked figure, which appears to either be the Grim Reaper or another sort of wraith, with a star or "twinkle" in its eye, pointing what may be a skeletal finger that leads, through a trail of smoke, to a silhouette of the B-21.
EBAY/DEANNAANDGORDON
In the background is a globe motif oriented to primarily show the western hemisphere. In red at the top of the globe is the Latin word "praenuntius," which translates to either herald or harbinger, or signs of things to come. Near the bottom there is what may be a bird or dragon in black above the Roman numerals XVII, or 17.
Grim Reapers or similar spectral figures are not uncommon motifs in morale patches, especially those associated with secret programs, those dealing with low-observable designs, or both. "Wraith" is even an informal nickname for the RQ-170 Sentinel.
The star in the eye could be a callback of some sort to the B-2 Combined Test Force logo, which featured a similar heraldic item at the end of one of a pair of bird-of-prey-like talons. If it is indeed a black bird, that could also be related to the names and motifs applied to previous secret and stealth projects, as well.
MILITARYPATCHEANDPINS.COM/THELIVINGMOON.COM
Similar imagery has been used in secretive stealth programs in the past, as well as for the B-2's own CTF.
It's less clear what the Roman numerals "17" might represent. Some have already posited it could be a reference to the actual Combined Test Force squadron, which will be assigned to the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base in the future – if it doesn't exist already in some form.
The Wing's 417th Flight Test Squadron shut down operations in 2012 with the cancellation of the YAL-1A airborne laser program and could be the unit in question, but there is no indication the Air Force has reactivated it since then. The Air Force did, without any other apparent notice, reactivate the 452nd Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base in March 2017, which seems like a more plausible reference to "17."
It could also have some entirely different meaning altogether. There is an Italian superstition that the Roman numerals for 17 are unlucky since they can form an anagram that translates to "I lived," with the implication that one's life is over.
The patch also caught the eye of our friend David Cenciotti of Theaviaitonist.com, and he says the seller obtained the patch from personnel at Edwards AFB who were standing-up the B-21 test program. This vibes with what The War Zone has long reported—the South Base installation at Edwards AFB has been in transition for some time and that the B-21, and possibly other cutting-edge platforms and munitions that will work with it, will use the facility as a headquarters for development.
We also have to remember that Combined Test Forces work to bring all the elements of a program—including those of contractors and various military stakeholders—together to devise and execute test program that will usher the weapon system into an operational state and then sustain and upgrade it after that. This includes developing and evaluating the many different technologies that make up the aircraft as a whole.
USAF
B-21 Raider
With this in mind, a flying prototype isn't needed for test work to begin, far from it in fact, albeit proof of concept, technology demonstrators, and aircraft that the B-21 borrows tech direct from do likely exist in the classified realm. Still, there are plenty of components to put through their paces before they fly on a finalized design.
Systems integration is one of the biggest challenges during the genesis of any weapons platform, yet alone for one that is likely to end up being the most complex airplane the world has ever seen. We have even heard about some of the issues the bomber has already faced during development.
In other words, the B-21 test team should really exist by now as they have a lot of work to do in a fairly short period of time. The USAF wants the aircraft operationalby around 2025.
The patch has leaped up dramatically in price in recent hours, with a current bid of $103.50. Let us know what you think of its symbolism in the comments below.
Zoomed in and slow mo version of the ufo around the airliner march 2018
Zoomed in and slow mo version of the ufo around the airliner march 2018
A nice, clean, slowed down shot of the ufo captured outside the airliner over turkey that just happened recently, what actually is this, this video gives you a clearer look at the incident
Here are 10 unexpected and intriguing facts about our solar system – our sun and its family of planets – you probably did not know!
Artists’s concept (montage) of our solar system.
Image via NASA/JPL.
Remember those Styrofoam models of the solar system we made in elementary school? The solar system is even cooler than that! Here are 10 things you might not know.
1. The hottest planet isn’t closest to the sun.
Many people know that Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, well less than half of the Earth’s distance. It’s no mystery, therefore, why people would assume that Mercury is the hottest planet. We know that Venus, the second planet away from the sun, is on the average 30 million miles (48 million km) farther from the sun than Mercury. The natural assumption is that, being farther away, Venus must be cooler. But assumptions can be dangerous. For practical consideration, Mercury has no atmosphere, no warming blanket to help it maintain the sun’s heat. Venus, on the other hand, is shrouded by an unexpectedly thick atmosphere, about 100 times thicker than Earth’s atmosphere. This in itself would normally serve to prevent some of the sun’s energy from escaping back into space and thus raise the overall temperature of the planet. But in addition to the atmosphere’s thickness, it is composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas. The carbon dioxide freely lets solar energy in, but is much less transparent to the longer wavelength radiation emitted by the heated surface. Thus the temperature rises to a level far above what would be expected, making it the hottest planet. In fact the average temperature on Venus is about 875 degrees Fahrenheit (468 degrees Celsius), hot enough to melt tin and lead. The maximum temperature on Mercury, the planet closer to the sun, is about 800 degrees F (427 degrees C). In addition, the lack of atmosphere causes Mercury’s surface temperature to vary by hundreds of degrees, whereas the thick mantle of carbon dioxide keeps the surface temperature of Venus steady, hardly varying at all, anywhere on the planet or any time of day or night!
New Horizons captured this image of Pluto on July 25, 2015, when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 km) from the planet.
The greatest distance across the contiguous United States – from Northern California to Maine – is nearly 2,900 miles (about 4,700 km). Thanks to the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015, we now know that Pluto is 1,473 miles (2,371 km) across, less than half the width of the U.S. Certainly in size it is much smaller than any major planet, perhaps making it a bit easier to understand why, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union changed Pluto’s status from major planet to dwarf planet.
3. George Lucas doesn’t know much about asteroid fields.
In many science fiction movies, spacecraft are often endangered by pesky asteroid fields. In actuality, the only asteroid belt we are aware of exists between Mars and Jupiter, and although there are tens of thousands of asteroids in it (perhaps more), they are quite widely spaced and the likelihood of colliding with one is small. In fact, spacecraft must be deliberately and carefully guided to asteroids to have a chance of even photographing one. Given the presumed manner of asteroid creation, it is highly unlikely that spacefarers will ever encounter asteroid swarms or fields in deep space.
4. You can make volcanos using water as magma.
Mention volcanoes and everyone immediately thinks of Mount St. Helens, Mount Vesuvius, or maybe the lava caldera of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Volcanos require molten rock called lava (or magma when still underground), right? Not really. A volcano forms when an underground reservoir of a hot, fluid mineral or gas erupts onto the surface of a planet or other non-stellar astronomical body. The exact composition of the mineral can vary greatly. On Earth, most volcanoes sport lava (or magma) that has silicon, iron, magnesium, sodium, and a host of complicated minerals. The volcanoes of Jupiter’s moon Io appear to be composed mostly of sulfur and sulfur dioxide. But it can be simpler than that. On Saturn’s moon Enceladus, Neptune’s moon Triton, and others, the driving force is ice, good old frozen H20! Water expands when it freezes and enormous pressures can build up, just as in a “normal” volcano on Earth. When the ice erupts, a cryovolcano is formed. So volcanoes can operate on water as well as molten rock. By the way, we have relatively small scale eruptions of water on Earth called geysers. They are associated with superheated water that has come into contact with a hot reservoir of magma.
5. The edge of the solar system is 1,000 times farther away than Pluto.
You might still think of the solar system as extending out to the orbit of the much-loved dwarf planet Pluto. Today we don’t even consider Pluto a full-fledged planet, but the impression remains. Still, we have discovered numerous objects orbiting the sun that are considerably farther than Pluto. These are Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) or Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). The Kuiper Belt, the first of the sun’s two reservoirs of cometary material, is thought to extend to 50 or 60 astronomical units (AU, or the average distance of the Earth from the sun). An even farther part of the solar system, the huge but tenuous Oort comet cloud, may extend to 50,000 AU from the sun, or about half a light-year – more than 1,000 times farther than Pluto.
6. Almost everything on Earth is a rare element.
The elemental composition of planet Earth is mostly iron, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, sulfur, nickel, calcium, sodium, and aluminum. While such elements have been detected in locations throughout the universe, they are merely trace elements, vastly overshadowed by the much greater abundances of hydrogen and helium. Thus Earth, for the most part, is composed of rare elements. This does not signify any special place for Earth, however. The cloud from which the Earth formed had a much higher abundance of hydrogen and helium, but being light gases, they were driven away into space by the sun’s heat as the Earth formed.
7. There are Mars rocks on Earth (and we didn’t bring them here).
Chemical analysis of meteorites found in Antarctica, the Sahara Desert, and elsewhere have been shown by various means to have originated on Mars. For example, some contain pockets of gas that is chemically identical to the Martian atmosphere. These meteorites may have been blasted away from Mars due to a larger meteoroid or asteroid impact on Mars, or by a huge volcanic eruption, and later collided with Earth.
8. Jupiter has the biggest ocean of any planet,
albeit made of metallic hydrogen. Orbiting in cold space five times farther from the sun than Earth, Jupiter retained much higher levels of hydrogen and helium when it formed than did our planet. In fact, Jupiter is mostly hydrogen and helium. Given the planet’s mass and chemical composition, physics demands that way down under the cold cloud tops, pressures rise to the point that the hydrogen must turn to liquid. In fact there should be a deep planetary ocean of liquid hydrogen. Computer models show that not only is this the largest ocean known in the solar system, but that it is about 25,000 miles (40,000 km) deep – roughly as deep as the Earth is around!
9. Even really small bodies can have moons.
It was once thought that only objects as large as planets could have natural satellites or moons. In fact the existence of moons, or the capability of a planet to gravitationally control a moon in orbit, was sometimes used as part of the definition of what a planet truly is. It just didn’t seem reasonable that smaller celestial bodies had enough gravity to hold a moon. After all, Mercury and Venus have none at all, and Mars has only tiny moons. But in 1993, the Galileo probe passed the 20-mile wide asteroid Ida and discovered its one-mile wide moon, Dactyl. Since then moons have been discovered orbiting many other minor planets in our solar system.
10. We live inside the sun.
Normally we think of the sun as being that big, hot ball of light 93 million miles (150 million km) away. But actually, the sun’s outer atmosphere extends far beyond its visible surface. Our planet orbits within this tenuous atmosphere, and we see evidence of this when gusts of the solar wind generate the Northern and Southern Lights. In that sense, we definitely live inside the sun. But the solar atmosphere doesn’t end at Earth. Auroras have been observed on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and even distant Neptune. In fact, the outer solar atmosphere, called the heliosphere, is thought to extend at least 100 A.U. That’s nearly 10 billion miles (16 billion km). In fact the atmosphere is likely teardrop shaped due to the sun’s motion in space, with the “tail” extending tens to hundreds of billions of miles downwind.
This artist’s concept puts solar system distances in perspective. The scale bar is in astronomical units, with each set distance beyond 1 AU representing 10 times the previous distance. One AU is the distance from the sun to the Earth, which is about 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. NASA’s Voyager 1, humankind’s most distant spacecraft, is around 125 AU. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Bottom line:The solar system is cool. Here are 10 things you might not know.
Intermittent Fasting Is As Old As Mankind—And It’s The Key To Longevity
Intermittent Fasting Is As Old As Mankind—And It’s The Key To Longevity
Even before the appearance of great ancient civilizations, hunter-gatherers across the globe reaped the benefits of intermittent fasting.
But if we take a peek back in history, we will notice that ancient civilizations across the globe were much more advanced than we credit them for.
In many areas, ancient civilizations like the ancient Egyptians or the Ancient Greeks possessed knowledge that modern-day scholars struggle to understand.
Written sources exist which are evidence that humans have used ‘starvation’ in order to help their body recover and reap the health benefits it offered.
Regardless of territory or religion, different ancient civilizations used intermittent fasting and were fully aware of its effectiveness.
In ancient Indy, Greece, and Egypt, the ancients used intermittent ‘fasting’ to treat certain diseases, but also as prevention.
They used it to strengthen the body, as intermittent fasting kicks off a set of processes in the body, as the release of more Norepinephrine, an organic chemical in the catecholamine family that functions in the brain and body as a hormone and neurotransmitter, giving the person practicing the fast more energy, alertness, and focus.
Intermittent fasting remained popular thousands of years ago and spread across different parts of the planet. In the Middle Ages, intermittent fasting remained extremely popular as people continued reaping its benefits.
However, even before the ancient Egyptians, Greek and Hindu, due to food scarcity our ancestors, hunter-gatherers, practiced intermittent fasting. Before agriculture, people ate what they could hunt when they returned home empty-handed, and wild berries were nowhere to be found, periods of starvation took place, and this greatly strengthened hunter-gatherers.
This practice also played a key role in nearly all the world’s major religions since its associated with penitence and other forms of self-control.
Mahatma Gandhi undertook 17 fasts during the struggle for Indian independence.
If we take a look at the history of different religions and their connection with intermittent fasting, we find how Judaism has several annual fast days including Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonements; in Islam, Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan, while Roman Catholics and Eastern orthodoxy observe a 40 day fast during Lent, the period when Christ fasted 40 days in the desert.
In recent times, scientists have started investigating intermittent fasting evermore.
A recent study by Harvard scientists has shown how intermittent fasting is not only healthy, but it also can help you live longer.
Experts from Harvard have found that by manipulating mitochondrial networks inside cells — either by dietary restriction or by genetic manipulation that mimics it — a person could increase their lifespan and help promote health.
The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism details advances made in the research of mitochondrial connections and explains how intermittent fasting is crucial to increase lifespan. According to the researchers, dietary restriction and intermittent fasting have shown in the past to be able to help health during the years of old age, so understanding why this phenomenon occurs is a crucial step towards the therapeutic use of its benefits.
“Our work shows how crucial is the plasticity of the mitochondria for the benefits of fasting,” they explained but emphasized that it is necessary to investigate more deeply this complex biological process to reach definitive conclusions.
THE MOST SHOCKING EVIDENCE THAT EARTH WAS VISITED BY ANCIENT ALIENS
THE MOST SHOCKING EVIDENCE THAT EARTH WAS VISITED BY ANCIENT ALIENS
The very words give me the chills: ancient aliens. In the early 1970s, when Erich von Däniken first released Chariots of the Gods, he called them “ancient astronauts”—a name that’s equally creepy. The Apollo missions were still going on, and the image of astronauts was fresh in everyone’s minds. Could ancient alien beings have arrived on Earth in the distant past? Would they have worn spacesuits, like our own astronauts?
If they truly visited our planet in millennia past: why were they here? What did the aliens do while they were on Earth?
Researchers have spent a lot of time looking into the question of whether we were visited so many millennia ago. The popular television show Ancient Aliens, although well-intentioned, has muddied the water in their search of show material—did we really need an episode asking whether aliens interfered with the American Civil War? (C’mon, guys. You’re off the reservation.)
Although we may not be ever know for sure that we had extraterrestrial visitors thousands of years in the past, perhaps if they did come, they might have left us modern people some clues. Let’s take a look at some of the most clear—and startling—evidence for the existence of ancient aliens on Earth.
ANCIENT ALIENS VISIT THE DOGON TRIBE?
African Tribe Possessed Knowledge Science Had Yet to Discover
This African tribe (whose name is pronounced “DOE-gone”) has known all sorts of specifics about the star Sirius for thousands of years, passed down from holy man to holy man. We’re talking details here, like how Sirius has a companion star (“Sirius B”), and that it circles the main star (“Sirius A”) every 50 years. Here’s the thing: it is absolutely true—but modern scientists didn’t know these things about Sirius until the middle of the 19th century. The Dogon knew a thousand years ago. Heck, the Dogon also knew that Sirius has a second companion star, and scientists didn’t discover it (“Sirius C”) until the 1990s.
How did the Dogon get this scientific information about Sirius B? If you ask them, they’ll tell you that the tribe was visited by the Nommos, an amphibian-like race that came from the Sirius star system in a noisy “ark” that spun and whipped up wind while it landed. It was the Nommos, a race of ancient aliens, who told the Dogon about their homeworld and its star cluster.
Knee-jerk skeptics like to invent reasons why all this can’t be true. Westerners must have stopped by and told them about Sirius, one denier said. There’s no way, though: the Dogon have artifacts that are thousands of years old, depicting Sirius and its companions. No one should have known this stuff that long ago, but the Dogon did.
This short video does a good job explaining the ancient Dogon knowledge. (I have no idea why the narrator pronounces Sirius as “SIGH-ree-us”, but we can give him a pass on that.)
THE PROPHET EZEKIEL DESCRIBES HIS ENCOUNTER WITH ANCIENT UFOS—IN THE BIBLE
Holy Scriptures Contain Account of Alien Contact?
Ask Erich von Däniken, the guy who pioneered the search for ancient aliens, and he’ll tell you his favorite evidence is in the Old Testament. It’s the story of Ezekiel and his bizarre encounter with UFOs.
Ezekiel was a prophet living in exile with the rest of the Hebrews in the land they called Babylon. Being a prophet was a highfalutin job back then, but Ezekiel’s life got even stranger—stranger than just being a guy who received special messages from the creator of the universe.
The prophet Ezekiel encounters a UFO and aliens 2,500 years ago
I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings.
Ezekiel 1:1-6
Some people read this and think: the dude was taking drugs. Others (knee-jerk skeptics) say: oh, it’s just more Biblical mumbo-jumbo. Devout people may say that Ezekiel saw angels.
Maybe.
What if this was Ezekiel actually saw something, and he didn’t know what it was, or how to explain it? If he actually encountered ancient aliens, how would he describe them? We think he’d probably describe them just like he did.
Next Ezekiel describes the machine that the being had arrived in, the machine that landed in a rush of wind.
Ezekiel confronts the great wheels withinwheels. Did he meet ancient aliens?
I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces. This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz … each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went.
Ezekiel 1:15-19
Doesn’t that sound like a spacecraft to you? Why would a man living 500 years B.C. write a description that sounds so much like the landing and maneuvering of an alien ship? Surely this was not just random. Remember: Ezekiel was devoutly religious, and he would interpret amazing events as signs from God. If beings appeared, he would assume they were angels. But perhaps they were ancient aliens.
What about their technology? Ezekiel’s description was of an alien craft with advanced maneuverability.
This story of the machine that had wheels-within-wheels impressed NASA engineer Joe Blumrich a lot. A wheel that could move in any direction without having to turn—that sounded like something a planetary exploration vehicle could use. He went on to invent a wheel based on Ezekiel’s description, and called it the “omni wheel.” Joe received a US patent for it in 1972. Today, omni wheels are routinely used in robot vehicles. Blumrich also wrote a popular book, The Spaceships of Ezekiel, in which he explained that after starting out intending to disprove the idea, he’d become convinced that Ezekiel truly had been writing about an encounter with ancient aliens.
“THOSE WHO CAME FROM THE SKIES TO THE EARTH”
World’s Oldest Civilization Leaves Record of Alien Contact
The ancient Sumerians lived 5,000 years ago in what’s now the country of Iraq. They left behind humankind’s first writings, books older than the Bible and the Hindu Vedas.
The Sumerians wrote a lot about the Anunnaki, whose name means “those who came from the skies to Earth”. Modern scholars have assumed that the stories of the Annunaki were just myths about Sumerian gods—but the stories themselves sound more like tales of ancient aliens.
In the writings, the Annunaki came to Earth from a lost planet in our solar system—one with such a wide orbit that it rarely approaches us. They called the planet Nibiru.
The leaders of the ancient aliens were named Enki and Enlil. They were here for gold, a mineral they needed but did not have enough of. Mines were set up there in Sumer, but also in Africa as well. Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, a Zulu elder and author of Zulu Shaman: Dreams, Prophecies, and Mysteries, says that ancient tribal traditions speak of “visitors from the stars” who mined for gold.
After mining for some time, the Anunnaki realized that the local humanoids—Homo Erectus, our ancestors—might make useful slaves if they could make them smarter. After improving the proto-humans, presumably with DNA modification, they managed to create a hybrid race: part Anunnaki, part early human. These new beings, called the Adamu, were the first real humans. They were also the new slaves who would work in the gold mines.
Ancient Sumerian cylindrical seal shows an accurate map of our solar system
Our hybrid ancestors didn’t stand for this situation for long, though, probably because these newly created beings were far too smart. Who wants to be a slave? They eventually rose up and rebelled, and eventually, a new Adamu society formed, one which maintained an uneasy truce with the Anunnaki.
The Sumerians recorded this history after first inventing writing. They also made engravings and art of the Anunnaki along with knowledge they had received from them—for instance, an ancient Sumerian seal depicts the Sumerian “gods” along with an accurate representation of our solar system, with 11 planets. The planets have correct proportions (Jupiter is the largest, then Saturn, and so on), and the depiction also includes the asteroid belt. Remember that modern science only discovered Uranus and Neptune in the past 150 years, and that scientists are only now saying that there is gravitational evidence for a “lost” planet with a weird, oblong orbit. Are there truly 11 planets? It may be so.
Sumerian artwork always depicts members of the Anunnaki as having wings. Did they actually have wings? It seems unlikely—many researchers believe the wings are meant to show that the Anunnaki had the ability to fly, as in ships. Other strange and telling things appear in the artwork: the goddess Ishtar’s symbol, which stood for the concept of “life”, bears a striking resemblance to the entwined double helix of DNA. Could that be more than a coincidence?
We’ve been kind of critical of the show Ancient Aliens, but this segment from an early episode explains all this pretty well (below). We also very much like this documentary about the Anunnaki and the planet Nibiru.
ANCIENT ALIENS FIGHT WARS IN THE SKIES OF ANCIENT INDIA
Hindu Holy Books Called The Vedas Describe Alien Encounters
There is strong evidence that ancient aliens visited other places around the Earth. In India, for example, the ancient holy books known as The Vedas tell of a space war between ships and fought in the skies. The descriptions of the ships are remarkable—translated, it is difficult to imagine that they were describing anything except spacecraft.
The Vedas state that “strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth.”
Spacecraft as described in the ancient Hindu holy books called The Vedas
No, that’s not a spacecraft they’re describing. No way.
“Fifty years of researching this ancient works convinces me that there are living beings on other planets and that they visited Earth as far back as 4,000 BC. There is just a mass of fascinating information about flying machines, even fantastic science fiction weapons that can be found in translations of The Vedas, Indian epics and other ancient Sanskrit text.” That’s Dr. Vijaya Raghavan, speaking; he was head of the Sanskrit department of the University of Madras in India (now retired). His job, if it’s not obvious, was to study The Vedas; his conclusion was that they described real events in which aliens came to Earth.
In other parts of The Vedas, we get a description of something that can only be a nuclear explosion.
“Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas.”
So what do we make of that? Just ancient imagination that happens to sound exactly like nuclear devastation? Sure, you deniers and skeptics, sure. You’re probably right. It’s ancient nonsense. Right?
Hungry for more?
Check out Google searches about the Nazca lines, and the Mayan king Pakal at the pyramid of Palenque. We could go on; there’s a lot of strange evidence on our Earth that is dismissed far too easily by mainstream science. Because the universe is mundane, and it has to be mundane—that is, if you’re a knee-jerk skeptic addicted to the idea that the universe is mundane.
Now, if you want to see the original film that inspired all this hysteria, it’s below: Chariots of the Gods, from the early 1970s. Yes, sure, it’s cheesy—it’s from the ’70s! But it’s still pretty cool, we think.
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NASA SCIENTIST SPEAKS OF A GIGANTIC EXTRATERRESTRIAL SPACECRAFT HIDING IN SATURN’S RINGS
NASA SCIENTIST SPEAKS OF A GIGANTIC EXTRATERRESTRIAL SPACECRAFT HIDING IN SATURN’S RINGS
The video below is a clip of Project Camelot’s Kerry Cassidy interviewing Dr. Norman Bergrun about what’s really going on in space. A mechanical engineer, Dr. Bergrun has worked for Ames Research Laboratory, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), and Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, now known as Lockheed Martin. He then went on to found Bergrun Engineering and Research.
You can view some of his publications for NASA, where he worked for more than a decade, here.
Coming from such a distinguished background, we can make several basic assumptions about him, not least of which is that he is highly intelligent. We can also assume that he knows and has worked with other intelligent and powerful people, and that he has had access to extremely sensitive data, which he himself makes clear in the below interview and in his book, The Ringmakers of Saturn.
What makes Norman’s story so intriguing is not only his impressive background, but the fact that hundreds of other scientists, politicians, and high-ranking military personnel have also shared information like this. He is just one of many insiders exposing the reality of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and extraterrestrial beings.
When former NASA astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor Dr. Brian O’Leary said that there is “abundant evidence that we are being contacted,that civilizations have been visiting us for a very long time,” he wasn’t joking. There are now officially declassified documents that verify a long history of military encounters with these objects; objects which are performing maneuvers that no known aircraft can perform, all while traveling at speeds no known aircraft can travel. Not only that, but at the same time that pilots visually confirm their sightings, these objects are being tracked on both air and ground radar.
Dr. Jacques Vallee, notable for co-developing the first computerized mapping of Mars for NASA, and for his work at SRI International on the network information center for ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet, published a paper in the Journal of Scientific Explorationtitled “Estimates of Optical Power Output in Six Cases Of Unexplained Aerial Objects With Defined Luminosity Characteristics.” (source)(source) There you can see some pictures taken by military pilots of the objects they encountered.
When entering into the vicinity of these objects, it’s not uncommon for critical electrical equipment to go ‘dead.’ UFOs have also been seen hovering around global nuclear missile facilities, at which time these facilities completely shut down and the nukes within go offline. You can learn more about that here.
According to Herman Oberth, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, “flying saucers are real and . . . they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.” (Oberth, Hermann: “Flying Saucers Come from a Distant World,” The American Weekly, October 24, 1954) (source 1)(source 2)
There are literally hundreds of shocking quotes from people of such reputable backgrounds, and thousands of documents pertaining to the UFO phenomenon, which lends even more credibility to the video below.
“What I found out is, these things inhabit Saturn, that’s where I first discovered them, and they’re proliferating.”
By the way, the ships Norman Speaks of around the rings of Saturn, they’re humungous.
His book, mentioned above, is currently is selling for approximately $2000 dollars on amazon. It has government pictures from the voyagers and other high-tech machines of the Spaceships that have been seen over Saturn’s rings.
Again, what makes this testimony so interesting is the fact that he is one of many high ranking whistleblowers in the field.
You can access the full interview, which is more than an hour long, HERE.
La station de radio d’Arizona 92.3FM KTAR News a publié cette information, et si ce n’était pas une radio établie et sérieuse, nous ne l’aurions pas reprise : « Deux pilotes de ligne rapportent avoir vu un OVNI dans le ciel au sud de l’Arizona ».
Emplacement du vol N71PG à 15 h 47 (en haut). Emplacement du vol AAL1095 au même moment (en bas)
Phoenix, Arizona – Des pilotes volant à bord de deux avions de ligne distincts ont rapporté avoir vu un objet volant non identifié au-dessus de l’Arizona le mois dernier.
Le premier incident s’est déroulé dans le sud de l’Arizona vers 15 h 30 le 24 février, entre la frontière du Nouveau-Mexique et le monument national du désert de Sonora, à environ 65 km de Phoenix.
Plus précisément, entre environ 15 h 30 et 16 h 15, heure locale, un Learjet 36 de la compagnie Phoenix Air, vol N71PG, et un Airbus A321 du vol AAL1095 d’American Airlines ont observé une étrange embarcation volant à environ 40 000 pieds. Les deux avions commerciaux volaient vers l’est à environ 37 000 pieds entre le monument national du désert de Sonoran et la frontière du Nouveau-Mexique lorsque l’incident s’est produit.
Le site The Drive a rapporté qu’un pilote de la compagnie American Airlines a déclaré que l’objet se trouvait à plus de 12 000 mètres d’altitude et qu’il avait une forte réverbération.
Le pilote du Learjet 36 :
« Je ne sais pas ce que c’était », a déclaré le pilote au centre de contrôle de la circulation aérienne d’Albuquerque. « Ce n’était pas un avion mais c’était … la trajectoire allait dans la direction opposée. »
Le centre de contrôle aérien d’Albuquerque a alors demandé à un autre avion de ligne qui se trouvait sur une trajectoire de vol similaire de lui faire savoir si quelque chose passait au-dessus de lui dans les prochains 20 km.
Le pilote d’American Airlines : « si quelque chose passe au-dessus de nous ! »?
Le contrôleur : « affirmatif, nous avions un avion devant vous à 37 [mille pieds] qui a signalé que quelque chose passait au-dessus de lui et que nous n’avions pas de cibles [radar], alors faites-moi savoir si vous voyez quelque chose passer au-dessus de vous ».
Quelques minutes plus tard, le pilote confirme que quelque chose a survolé son avion.
« Je ne sais pas ce que c’était, mais il était a trois mille pieds au-dessus de nous », a-t-il dit. « Il est passé juste au-dessus de nous. »
« Pouvez-vous dire si c’était en mouvement ou juste en vol stationnaire? »
Le pilote de l’Airbus : « Négatif, je ne sais pas s’il s’agissait d’un ballon météo ou autre », a déclaré le pilote. « C’était juste de la lumière qui rayonnait vraiment ou qui avait une grande réflexion et se trouvait plusieurs milliers de pieds au-dessus de nous en allant dans la direction opposée. »
Puis un pilote demande sur la fréquence : « était-ce un ballon de Google ?
AAL1095 : « J’en doute ».
Une autre voix arrive alors sur la fréquence et dit « un OVNI !« .
Une minute plus tard, American 1095 rappelle la tour de contrôle et dit: « ouais, quelque chose vient de passer au-dessus de nous, comme un–je ne sais pas ce que c’était, mais c’était au moins deux à trois mille pieds au-dessus de nous. Ouais, il est passé juste au-dessus de nous. »
Roughly 65 million light-years away from Earth is a galaxy called NGC 1052-DF2 (DF2 for short). But DF2 may as well be called F-U, because that’s what it’s saying to scientists who thought they understood galaxies, dark matter, and really anything about our universe.
What makes DF2 so special, you may ask? It appears to contain virtually no dark matter.
We’ve never seen dark matter directly. We only believe dark matter exists because we can see how it affects “regular,” or baryonic, matter. Based on these indirect observations, researchers have estimated that dark matter makes up about 27 percent of our universe.
Since dark matter was (sort of) discovered, researchers assumed dark matter was essential to galaxy formation. Dark matter would clump together. Then, the gravity from those clumps would attract baryonic matter, forming the stars, planets, and other objects we can actually see within a galaxy. Easy, right?
Based on this understanding, the team studying DF2 thought they had a pretty good idea how much dark matter it contained. But when they calculated how much dark matter DF2 actually had, they discovered it contained only 1/400th the amount they expected.
“It challenges the standard ideas of how we think galaxies work,” Pieter van Dokkum, a Yale University professor and lead author of a paper on DF2, now published in Nature, said in a press release. “This result also suggests that there may be more than one way to form a galaxy.”
DF2 is unique in other ways, too. It doesn’t fit the characteristics of a spiral galaxy, which typically have dense, central regions, spiral arms, and a disk. But it also isn’t like known elliptical galaxies, which have a black hole at their center.
Instead, DF2 is a rare ultra-diffuse galaxy. “It’s so sparse that you see all of the galaxies behind it,” van Dokkum said. “It is literally a see-through galaxy.”
This might seem counterintuitive, but DF2 actually supports the existence of dark matter, which some theories argue doesn’t exist.
“For those kinds of theories, it wouldn’t be possible to ever have a galaxy that looks as though it doesn’t have dark matter,” Jocelyn Monroe, a particle physicist and dark matter expert at Royal Holloway, University of London, who was not involved in the study, told The Verge. “So [this galaxy is] really interesting for the potential it has to exclude some of these ideas.”
The researchers hope to pin down the age of DF2. “At the moment, we only know its older than 10 billion years, but we’d like to know if it’s 10 billion years old or 13 billion years old, which is right after the Big Bang,” van Dokkum told ABC.
If DF2 does end up being 13 billion years old, it could rack in another superlative: the oldest galaxy ever discovered.
Rare Dead Sea Scroll Describing Live Of Noah Exhibited For First Time
Rare Dead Sea Scroll Describing Live Of Noah Exhibited For First Time
Referred to as the Apocryphal Genesis, the ancient text describes the lives of Noah, Abraham, Enoch and Lamech, characters from the book of Genesis, and most importantly, the passages are not narrated in the third person, but it is Noah himself who tells the story. Noah describes how the ark coming to rest on the peaks of Mount Ararat after the great Flood.
The Museum of Israel (Jerusalem) has exhibited, for the first time ever, a rare fragment of the enigmatic Dead Sea Scrolls discovered 70 years ago, describing the lives of Noah, Abraham, Enoch and Lamech, characters in the book of Genesis, written in the first person.
Noah’s Ark.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
The rare manuscript is the so-called “Apocryphal Genesis” the only known existing copy of an ancient Jewish text that tells stories of the first book of the Bible.
This manuscript, which is part of the Rolls of Qumran, dates from the 1st century BC and it was one of the first seven Dead Sea scrolls that were found in caves in the West Bank in the 1940s and 1950s.
The document, which will be shown to the public for three months, is written in Aramaic and describes the lives of Noah, Abraham, Enoch and Lamech, characters from the book of Genesis, and most importantly, the passages are not narrated in the third person, but it is Noah himself who tells the story.
The ancient manuscript is badly damaged.
Image Credit: AP/Oded Balilty
“This is the only copy of this book on Earth,” said Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, where the scrolls are housed.
“In some way what we have are parallel stories that we don’t have in the Hebrew Bible, in which the patriarchs are presented in different ways than the ways we have today in the Pentateuch,” he said.
The ancient manuscript, which is badly damaged, deals with Noah’s ark coming to rest on the peaks of Mount Ararat after the great Flood.
Noah describes how “atoned for all the earth in its entirety” by offering up various animal sacrifices.
“When you take a look at this manuscript, it’s not like taking a look at Botticelli,” Roitman said. “It doesn’t look very aesthetic, that’s not the point. The point is actually the kind of information in this document, as a lost tradition, that we didn’t know about before. It opens up a new perspective on ancient Jewish history and civilization.”
The Genesis Apocryphon scroll was already in a very damaged state when it was first discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947.
“Today we have the opportunity to see it (the manuscript) for a few months and then it will go back to the cellars and will not see the light again for dozens of years,” said the director of the museum, Ido Bruno.
Researchers Find The Oldest Human Footprints—From The Last Ice Age—in North America
Researchers Find The Oldest Human Footprints—From The Last Ice Age—in North America
The discovery implies that about 13,000 years ago the people who left the footprints were seafarers who used boats to get around.
The human traces found on an island along the coast of British Columbia, in western Canada, would be around 13,000 years old, making them the oldest discovered in North America. Archaeologists have uncovered a total of 29 footprints of at least three different sizes.
Photograph of one of the tracks next to the digitally enhanced image of it.
Image Credit: Duncan McLaren / CC BY-SA 4.0
This means a couple of things.
First of all, and obviously, humans existed in North America much sooner than what experts have suggested.
Secondly, the discovery indicates that during the Last Ice Age, human populations moved to America from Asia, across a land bridge that existed at the time.
Thirdly, say researchers, these footprints are the only ones ever discovered dating back at least 13,000 years. Experts explain that the prints may have been ‘recorded’ as these individuals disembarked from their boat, eventually moving to drier lands.
Using radiocarbon dating on sediment from the base of some footprint impressions, as well as two pieces of preserved wood found in the first footprint, Dr. McLaren lead author Duncan McLaren, a professor of anthropology at the Hakai Institute and the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and his team found them to be 13,000 years old, reports the NY Times.
According to preliminary studies, digital photographic studies have revealed that the ancient footprints most likely belonged to two adults and a child who walked barefoot on clay soil on what is now a beach on Calvert Island, northeast of Vancouver Island, say the authors of the study published in the journal PLOS One.
The new find adds to evidence suggesting ancient cultures crossed over to North America from Asia during the last Ice Age, between 10,000 and 14,000 years ago.
“A total of 29 footprints were found in the sediments during the excavation work carried out between 2014 and 2016,” said Duncan McLaren.
“As this island would only have been accessible by watercraft 13,000 years ago,” Dr. McLaren said, “it implies that the people who left the footprints were seafarers who used boats to get around, gather and hunt for food and live and explore the islands.”
The study suggests that humans were present on the Pacific coast of British Columbia about 13,000 years ago and that the region was then ice-free, long before the end of the last glacial period on the continent, which dates back to 11,700 years ago.
This discovery reinforces the hypothesis supported by a growing number of researchers according to which the first people who arrived in North America migrated from Asia through a land corridor along the coast, without ice, to finally reach British Columbia.
The footprints which are believed to date back to the last Ice Age.
Image Credit: Duncan McLaren CC BY-SA 4.0
Supporting this hypothesis has not been easy for researchers, since this area of Canada, very rugged and covered with dense forests, is only accessible by boat, they explained.
The researchers concentrated their excavations on an area on Calvert Island, where the water level was two to three meters lower than the current one at the end of the ice age, between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The authors believe that further excavations with more elaborate methods will allow discovering more traces, helping to reconstruct the history of the first human settlements along the west coast of North America.
“It’s not only the footprints themselves that are spectacular and so rare in archaeological context, but also the age of the site,” said Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany who edited the paper for PLOS One but was not involved in the work. “It suggests an early entrance into the Americas.”
“It’s so rare, particularly these days after so many years of Hubble, that you get an image of something and say, ‘I’ve never seen that before.’”
The ghostly galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 is exceedingly diffuse. See the distant galaxies behind it? The galaxy is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter. The Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys acquired this image, which is via NASA, ESA, and P. van Dokkum, Yale.
In recent decades, astronomers have believed that invisible, mysterious dark matter is the dominant aspect of any galaxy. Astronomers think that dark matter is needed to form galaxies. That’s why they are so surprised to find a galaxy with no (or very little) dark matter. The finding challenges astronomers’ ideas about how galaxies come to be. A Yale-led research team made the discovery while peering at the distant galaxy NGC 1052-DF2. These astronomers say their finding has broad implications for our understanding of the universe. A March 28, 2018 statement from Yale said:
It shows for the first time that dark matter is not always associated with traditional matter on a galactic scale …
We thought that every galaxy had dark matter and that dark matter is how a galaxy begins.
To make this discovery, the team used a telescope invented by van Dokkum and built with co-author Roberto Abraham of the University of Toronto. It’s called the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. The galaxy had been cataloged previously, but these researchers said they noticed it looked very different in the Dragonfly images. Co-author Shany Danieli, a Yale graduate student, commented:
It looked like a diffuse blob sprinkled with very compact star clusters. I love working with the Dragonfly telescope, as it shows us faint structures that no one has even seen before.
The researchers then used the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to measure the motions of 10 very dense groupings of stars called globular clusters, orbiting this galaxy’s center. They found that the clusters were moving at relatively low speeds — less than 23,000 miles (37,000 km) per hour. Stars in galaxies containing dark matter move at least three times faster. Van Dokkum explained that, using the new motion measurements, the researchers were able to calculate NGC 1052-DF2’s mass. That’s when they realized that this galaxy was very, very different from other galaxies. Van Dokkum said:
If there is any dark matter at all, it’s very little. The stars in the galaxy can account for all the mass, and there doesn’t seem to be any room for dark matter.
I spent an hour just staring at the Hubble image. It’s so rare, particularly these days after so many years of Hubble, that you get an image of something and say, “I’ve never seen that before.” This thing is astonishing, a gigantic blob that you can look through. It’s so sparse that you see all of the galaxies behind it. It is literally a see-through galaxy.
Bottom line: The galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 appears to have no dark matter. It confounds astronomers’ theories of the universe, which says galaxies need dark matter to form.
APHet Russische ruimtestation Mir ('Vrede') brandde op 23 maart 2001 grotendeels op in de atmosfeer. Brokstukken vielen in de Stille Oceaan. De eerste module van Mir werd gelanceerd in 1986.
WETENSCHAPHet onbestuurbaar geworden eerste Chinese ruimtestation, de Tiangong-1, valt zondag op Aarde terug. Dit heeft de gezaghebbende website spaceweather.com gemeld. China zegt ondertussen dat er geen reden tot ongerustheid is voor de luchtvaart of voor schade aan de grond.
Tot voorheen luidde het in Peking dat de terugkeer tussen 30 maart en 4 april zou plaatsvinden, terwijl het Europese Ruimtevaatbureau ESA het terugkeervenster naar 2 april vernauwde. Spaceweather.com zegt nu dat het zondag omstreeks 09.15 uur Belgische tijd zou gebeuren, met een onzekerheid van twintig uur. De terugkeer zal in een gebied tussen 43 graden noorderbreedte en 43 graden zuiderbreedte gebeuren.
Geciteerd door het officiële persburau Xinhua zegt het Chinese Engineeringbureau voor de Bemande Ruimtevaart (CMSEO) dat het tien meter lange ruimteschip wellicht helemaal zal opbranden in de atmosfeer. “Mensen moeten zich helemaal geen zorgen maken”, luidt het. “Het wordt geen vurige crash, maar meer iets als een meteorenstorm”. Tijdens zo een storm vallen 1.000 tot 20.0000 meteoren per uur uit de kosmos, maar de kans dat een meteoriet van meer dan 200 gram iemand raakt is 1 op 700 miljoen, zegt het CMSEO.
Drie fasen
Het legt uit dat zo een terugval gewoonlijk in drie fasen gebeurt. In de eerste fase zorgt de atmosferische wrijving ervoor dat zonnepanelen, antennes en andere externe delen op een hoogte van zowat 100 km worden afgerukt. Tijdens de verdere afdaling brandt tengevolge van toenemende hitte en wrijving de hoofdstructuur van het ruimteschip op of explodeert ze. De desintegratie gebeurt op zowat 80 km hoogte.
De fragmenten blijven branden tot ze niet meer bestaan. Enkel een heel kleine hoeveelheid schroot bereikt het aardoppervlak, tengevolge van de geringe massa aan een zeer lage snelheid.
Overblijvende brokstukken zullen heel waarschijnlijk in plaats van dichtbevolkte gebieden te raken in zee storten, want zeeën vormen zeventig procent van het aardoppervlak. Sinds de jaren zestig is meer dan 15.000 ton ruimteschroot teruggevallen. Nooit is iemand geraakt, zegt het CMSEO.
Extreem toxisch
De Facebookgroep ESA Fans Group roept niettemin mensen, die een uit de lucht gevallen verkoold object vinden, op dit niet aan te raken. De Tiangong-1 heeft nog steeds extreem toxische en bijtende brandstof aan boord. De vinders dienen de bevoegde autoriteiten zoals politie of brandweer op de hooge te brengen. Op 29 september 2011 lanceerde Peking zijn eerste ruimtestation, de Tiangong-1 (Hemels Paleis). Het is sinds 2013 niet meer operationeel en enkele jaren later verloor Peking de controle over het ruimteschip.
APHet eerste Chinese ruimtestation Tiangong-1 werd in 2011 operationeel. Sinds 2013 is het contact verbroken.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Een pas ontdekt sterrenstelsel slaat astronomen met verstomming. Het stelsel bevat zo goed als geen donkere materie: iets dat tot nu toe niet mogelijk werd geacht. De ontdekking haalt huidige theoriën rond het ontstaan van sterrenstelsels en de rol van donkere materie onderuit.
Toegegeven, over donkere materie is nog niet veel bekend: de deeltjes zijn onzichtbaar en niemand weet exact waar ze vandaan komen. Waar wetenschappers het tot nu toe wél over eens zijn, is dat het heelal bestaat uit vijf keer meer donkere materie dan gewone materie, zoals bijvoorbeeld van sterren, planeten en gassen. Daarnaast werd gedacht dat sterrenstelsels niet konden ontstaan zonder donkere materie. De ontdekking van een nieuw sterrenstelsel gaat lijnrecht in tegen die theorieën. Het stelsel, NGC 1052-DF2 of kortweg DF2, bevat namelijk zo goed als géén donkere materie.
Het stelsel ligt op zo’n 65 miljoen lichtjaren van de aarde, en is ongeveer zo groot als onze Melkweg, maar heeft circa 200 keer minder sterren. Belangrijker: het bevat ongeveer 400 keer minder donkere materie dan verwacht. De ontdekking “stelt alle courante theorieën omtrent de vorming van sterrenstelsels op de proef”, schrijft Pieter van Dokkum, de Nederlandse astronoom verantwoordelijk voor de ontdekking.
Traag draaien
De reden waarom DF-2 wordt geacht zo goed als geen donkere materie te bevatten, is omdat het stelsel trager draait dan het volgens de huidige theorieën zou moeten. Tot nu toe werd aangenomen dat donkere materie fungeert als de “lijm” die sterrenstelsels samenhoudt. Meeste zichtbare sterrenstelsels draaien te snel voor hun zichtbare massa - de sterren en gaswolken in het stelsel - waardoor werd gedacht dat een onzichtbare massa voor meer zwaartekracht zorgde: donkere materie. DF-2 draait echter op een heel normale snelheid voor zijn zichtbare massa. Wetenschappers concluderen daarom dat het stelsel bijna geen donkere materie herbergt.
Waarom het DF-2 ontbreekt aan donkere materie, blijft voorlopig een vraagteken. Voor nu zijn wetenschappers op zoek naar gelijkaardige stelsels om een mogelijke verklaring te vinden.
Born just a couple of years before the 20th century began, Truman Bethurum was a man who had problems keeping a regular job. He was also someone who was hardly a success when it came to the matter of marriage. He was married and divorced twice and spent his old age with his third wife. Bethurum also happened to be one of the more well-known of the so-called “Contactees” of the 1950s. Bethurum claimed that while working as a maintenance mechanic on a new stretch of Nevada highway in the early 1950s, he met an über-babe from the stars named Aura Rhanes. She was the captain of the star-ship which descended before Bethurum on Mormon Mesa, in Nevada’s Moapa Valley. The home-planet of the ETs was Clarion, about which Bethurum learned a great deal. And Bethurum didn’t just meet with his space-chick once, but on more than a dozen occasions.
Bethurum’s entertaining experiences increased, as did his relationship with the flirty Captain Rhanes. For a significant period of time, Bethurum and Rhanes had clandestine meetings, usually late at night. They generally occurred in isolated desert locations in Nevada, where, after Rhanes’ huge ship landed, the pair had long and deep conversations about the state of the Earth, the Soviet threat, and the captain’s home world – to which she promised to take Bethurum, one day. While Bethurum did not explicitly say so, there are a few nuggets of data in Bethurum’s collective work that suggest on a couple of occasions the pair might have had just about the closest and most intimate encounters of all. It’s hardly surprising, then, that many UFO researchers outright dismiss Bethurum’s story as a hoax, or as a fantasy born out of Bethurum’s unhappiness with his private life.
I don’t think that Bethurum had real encounters with a genuine, hot, space captain from some faraway world. But, I don’t think it was just a case of Bethurum fantasizing or spinning a significant number of yarns to entertain the UFO enthusiasts of the 1950s. Remember that when Bethurum got that new work contract in Nevada, and he began talking about encounters with aliens (and one alien in particular…), his second marriage was already on the rocks. Clearly, he was looking for something (or, more correctly, someone) new.
It should be noted that a number of Bethurum’s encounters with the curvy captain occurred late at night and while he was out in the desert and just after taking a snooze. This latter point of Bethurum dozing off before Aura appeared is important, because his own words strongly suggest that he was in a hypnagogic state when he encountered the woman-who-probably-never-was. Psychonautwiki note of hypnagogia that it “…is the experience of transitioning from wakefulness to sleep. During this state, one usually experiences visual, auditory or tactile hallucinations, or sleep paralysis…Exceptionally, longer-lasting auditory hallucinations can also be heard, such as music. Some people report hearing very loud noises, like crashes, gunshots or explosions…”
Bethurum’s own words show that just before he woke up, and right before Captain Rhanes put in her appearances, he would often hear words spoken in a kind of “mumbling” fashion. Sometimes he could understand the words, but on other occasions he was unable to figure out what the voices were saying. This issue of strange mumbling is a classic aspect of hypnagogia. It’s worth noting too that Bethurum’s job in Nevada involved shift-work. Sometimes, he worked from the late afternoon/early evening and through to the early hours of the morning (when the Nevada heat was more tolerable than during the height of the day). Disturbed sleep (which Bethurum must have had to at least a certain degree) can make hypnagogia worse. Or, from Bethurum’s perspective, much better! On this matter of disturbed sleep, Mental Health Daily state: “Those that work night shifts or have an inconsistent sleep schedule may be more prone to hypnagogic hallucinations prior to bed.”
Although over the years I have admittedly swung back and forth on the matter of what really happened to Bethurum, I would suggest that, probably, the entire series of encounters occurred while Bethurum was in a hypnagogic state – a state in which Bethurum could have his ideal woman. With one marriage over and another one all but finished, Bethurum’s subconscious conveniently filled in the gaps and gave Bethurum exactly what he wanted. From his perspective, it was a beautiful woman from the stars. But, just like his relationships in the real world, even the one he had with super-hot Aura didn’t last. She finally bid him goodbye, climbed aboard her UFO and headed back to Clarion.
Bethurum’s story of how he almost (or may have..) nailed an extraterrestrial was told in 1954, in the pages of Aboard a Flying Saucer, which is a fine and entertaining romp filled with innuendos and suggestive snippets. But, Bethurum was not done. Other publications surfaced, such as 1957’s The Voice of the Planet Clarion; 1958’s Facing Reality (which, clearly, Bethurum never did), and The People of the Planet Clarion, which was published in 1970, one year after his death.
One of those who helped Bethurum on his 1970 book, The People of the Planet Clarion, was an artist named Columba Krebs. It’s notable that Krebs observed, and stated, that Bethurum had an overwhelming obsession with Rhanes, even years after she dumped him. He longed for her to return. She never did. But, it could be argued that such was Bethurum’s need to still have Aura in his life, he almost managed to achieve that – albeit in a very weird way.
In 1961, Bethurum married for a third time. And it all took place at the annual, California-based Giant Rock Space Convention, which was organized each year by fellow-Contactee, George Van Tassel. Bethurum’s new wife (and final wife, I should stress) was named Alvira Roberts. Maybe it’s all just a coincidence, but I find the name of wife number three to be very intriguing. Both “Aura” and “Alvira” begin with the letter “A.” Both first-names end with an “A” too. “Rhanes” and “Roberts” both begin with “R” and both end with “S.” Bethurum may have been missing Aura Rhanes to such an extent that he chose to marry someone whose name – to a degree – reminded him of the woman who he loved, but who he could never be with – because she never really lived.
Obsession, fantasy, yearning and failure, and all wrapped up in a saga filled with flying saucers and disturbed sleep patterns.
When not one pilot, but two pilots on two different jets both call a craft a UFO, then you sure as heck can bet they were right. Most pilots never see a UFO in their career, but a few do, and here is the original recording of their conversation with one another about what they saw. Scott C. Waring
News states:
Two pilots flying on two separate planes reportedly claim to have witnessed an unidentified flying object over Southern Arizona and New Mexico. In audio shared with Inverse by the Federal Aviation Administration, pilots can be heard discussing about an "UFO" with the Albuquerque Air Route Traffic Control Center on February 24. "I don't know what it was. It wasn't an airplane but it was, the path was going in the opposite direction," the pilot of a Learjet said to air traffic control. Control then asked a nearby American Airlines plane lookout for any flying object going in opposite direction. Few minutes later the American Airlines pilot contacted the tower and said, "Something just passed over us, like a, don't know what it was, but it was at least two, three thousand feet above us." He added, "Yeah it passed right over the top of us." In a statement to KOB 4, the NBC station in Albuquerque, the FAA said, "We don't have any comment beyond what you hear. Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area. We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons."
Another UFO has just visited the U.S. at least according to the video of an unusual UFO in Florida this week. It seems to be made up of two round pontoon sections tied together, according to many commenters. It is something that no one has ever seen before. The UFO seems to reflect the colour of the background sky as if it partially uses a cloaking technology.
The witness described the UFO as the same size of a mid-size house. It was large enough for several people to fly. The witness further said that it was operating just at an average speed – not slow, not fast. It reportedly made a 90-degree directional turn.
Some believe that the UFO might come from their underwater base as it was spotted near the ocean. It is thought that many underwater UFOs moved over to the land to investigate the human activity.
The Enigmatic Nazca Lines—A Message To The Star People?
The Enigmatic Nazca Lines—A Message To The Star People?
It was in 1927 when Airlines started operating over Peru when passengers described strange lines, figures, and shapes on the ground. Almost invisible from the ground, massive figures were etched into the desert of Nazca, almost as if they were welcoming those who observe from above.
Airplanes filled with tourists from all over the world quickly conquered the Nazca skies, and over 100 different designs were discovered in the region. These strange geoglyphs depict animals, interesting geometrical designs, and even humanoid figures.
Nazca lines, courtesy Simon E. Davies.
However, what is perhaps one of the most exciting things about Nazca is that these drawings are scattered over two hundred square miles.
These figures are massive, and you can only appreciate them from the sky. If you stand on the ground the drawings cannot be seen, you wouldn’t be able to make out anything, so what was the purpose of these drawings? There are over 150 geometrical shapes at Nazca, and you can only see what they are if you are flying.
The most massive figure found at Nazca is approx. 1000 feet and the longest one goes for 9 miles. Why Nazca? How were they built? To what purpose?
According to archaeologists, these mysterious drawings are believed to have been created by the Nazca people; which flourished in the region between the 1st and 8th century A.D.
The lines were formed by the careful removal of the reddish iron-oxide pebbles that make up the desert surface. Once exposed, the underlying dirt, which contains high amounts of lime, hardened and resistant to erosion.
The reason these lines survived so long is that of the weather conditions in the region, there is little rain and wind is almost nonexistent so if you go to Nazca today, and draw something on the ground it will remain there for quite some time.
The Hummingbird at Nazca.
The question we need to ask today is if the ancient Nazca people created these drawings, to what purpose did they do it. You can truly appreciate the greatness of these figures from the sky, but at the time they created them, airplanes didn’t exist, so for who did they design this? They would have needed something or someone to guide them because these lines are precise, they are very accurate, and it’s hard to believe that the Nazca could achieve such accuracy in their drawings without having a way to observe what they were doing, they needed to be guided somehow.
You cannot just go ahead and draw a figure that is over 1000 feet large or over five miles long without making mistakes.
To draw something at Nazca isn’t the problem, you can draw anything on the ground and well… that’s about it; you remove the top layer and whatever you decide to draw will stay there, the question is how did they make these huge designs so accurately.
Could have extraterrestrials been the reason for the Nazca lines? The answer is YES because in that period in mankind’s history the only ones that could have had the ability to fly were extraterrestrial beings.
Some of the parts of Nazca have amazing designs highly accurate triangles that are a mystery. Some of the triangles look like they were made by something that pressed the ground down at least 30 inches with incredible force, now could the ancient Nazca have done this? With their feet? How would you press down a six-mile “perfect” triangle into the desert?
What is the purpose of these lines? Could they have been used as “navigational” markers for visitors from outer space? Where they created by the natives to commemorate the gods that visited them thousands of years ago?
Mysterious geometric patterns adorn the landscape.
According to legend, the mysterious Incan creator god Viracocha commissioned the Nazca Lines and glyphs in the past.
Some myths maintain that the Nazca lines are said to be created by Viracocha himself.
Viracocha was the great teacher God of the Andes, similar to Quetzalcoatl or Kukulkan.
Viracocha was one of the most important deities in the Inca pantheon and was seen as the creator of all things, or the substance from which all things are created, and intimately associated with the sea.
According to the myth recorded by Juan de Betanzos, Viracocha rose from Lake Titicaca (or sometimes the cave of Pacaritambo) during the time of darkness to bring forth light.
Erich von Daniken’s controversial theories concerning the Nazca Lines have ignited hundreds of people to travel to Nazca and study the culture, the life, and history of the Nazca people.
There are some scholars that have found curious patterns in the numerous designs, and they infer that the Nazca may be one of the earliest known examples of applied geometry.
One of the most intriguing designs of Nazca, without a doubt, is the one which represents a Spider.
The Spider has one leg extended way out. Curiously, if you take that geoglyph and if you were to flip and turn it, so it displays the mirror effect, what you would observe is that the Nazca spider is representing the Constellation of Orion, and the long spiders leg is representing the brightest star in the sky, Sirius which is also one of Earth’s nearest neighbors.
Weird, right?
What you have here is a depiction of a spider, which can only be seen from the sky, and that represents stars and constellations.
Whoever designed these intricate geoglyphs at Nazca had an excellent knowledge of Astronomy and geometry, and like many other ancient cultures around the world, the Nazca also knew that Orion and Sirius were important, almost as if the geoglyphs was their way of paying respect to the stars.
According to statements, experts from the University of Dresden studied the Nazca lines. They measured the magnetic field and found changes in the magnetic field under some of the geoglyphs at Nazca.
Electrical conductivity was also measured by scientists at Nazca where tests were performed at the Nazca lines, and next to them and the results showed that electric conductivity was 8000 higher on the lines than next to them.
Lines and Geoglyphs of Nazca, Peru – collage (From top left: seabird, hand, pelican, condor, giant, whale, spider, monkey, dog, scorpion, hummingbird)
Eight feet beneath some of the lines there are magnetic field anomalies. There is something at Nazca that makes it unique, different from any other place on Earth but we simply do not know what it is.
What makes Nazca so special? Well, Nazca has everything. It is a mineral-rich environment. Nitrates and various things that we use in our modern propulsion are found in abundance. The Nazca were located in a nitrate-rich environment, but as far as research has shown, they did not need it.
The question might be, whether nitrate was of special importance to “otherworldly” visitors that could have visited Nazca in the past. In today’s technology, nitrate is used in a lot of interesting things; technology is perhaps number one as even today we have certain interest in nitrate because it is used in space travel.
Nazca holds infinite mysteries, but at the same time answers, the question is will we ever truly understand this gigantic display of creativity and geometry? One thing is certain, this area of Peru will continue to be an area of huge interest to archaeologists, scientists, and historians.
Archaeologists Find The Amazon Was Home To Ancient Civilization With A Million People
Archaeologists Find The Amazon Was Home To Ancient Civilization With A Million People
“Our research shows we need to re-evaluate the history of the Amazon,” say researchers.
The distribution of the potential sites suggests an interconnected, advanced series of fortified villages spanning over 1,100 miles that flourished between 1200 and 1500 A.D.
According to recent studies, southern parts of the Amazon rainforest were covered by a vast network of ancient settlements and ceremonial centers long before the arrival of Columbus. Researchers have shown how complex societies—of around one million inhabitants—existed in the Amazon as early as 1250AD.
The National Geographic Society partially funded the new study published in the Journal Nature Communications.
Amazon Geoglyph photo. Credit: Jenny Watling
The study details parts of the Amazon rainforest thought to have been uninhabited to be home of a thriving ancient culture with more than one million inhabitants.
So far, researchers have discovered around 1,500 fortified villages in the Amazon rainforest, built far away from major rivers.
By excavating charcoal remains and pottery, archeologists have discovered an area of 1,800 kilometers in Southern Amazon that is believed to have continuously been occupied as early as 1250 AD.
This discovery contradicts earlier beliefs that ancient communities preferred to build villages near rivers and lakes.
Geoglyphs in the southern Amazon are evidence of a once-thriving population.
Image Credit: University of Exeter.
But most importantly, the new finding has helped scholars fill in a major gap in the history of the Amazon and its ancient inhabitants. Furthermore, it provides conclusive evidence that parts of the Amazon thought to have been untouched by human occupation were under heavily influenced by ancient cultures.
Many people have the image that it’s an untouched paradise,” says Jonas Gregorio de Souza, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter who collaborated on the project.
Much of the Amazon remains unexplored and is covered in dense forest, making it nearly inaccessible to archaeologists and other scholars interested in learning more about life away from the mighty river.
As noted by the National Geographic, “the distribution of the potential sites suggests an interconnected, advanced series of fortified villages spanning over 1,100 miles that flourished between 1200 and 1500 A.D.”
“We need to re-evaluate the history of the Amazon,” said José Iriarte, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter, National Geographic Explorer, and the paper’s primary author, in apress release.
Aerial photo of an archaeological site — a circular enclosure (140 m diameter) located on a hilltop.
Image Credit: José Iriarte.
“Our research shows we need to re-evaluate the history of the Amazon. It certainly wasn’t an area populated only near the banks of large rivers, and the people who lived there did change the landscape. The area we surveyed had a population of at least tens of thousands.”
So far, archaeologists have revealed that there are around 1,300 geoglyphs and villages in a 154,000 square-mile swath of Southern Amazonia.
Some of these cities existed before written history, and before mankind existed on Earth, at least according to the Bible. But before religion, and before written history, ancient cultures around the world built massive cities, extremely old cities.
And when we talk about the oldest cities on Earth, we mean the oldest continuously inhabited cities. Note that different sources have different dates for the cities.
Starting off with what many claim is to be the oldest city on the surface of the planet: Jericho.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
Joshua 6:2-5
Traces of habitation: 9000 BC.
The ruins of Jericho.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Fortifications date to 6800 BC (or earlier), making Jericho the earliest known walled city on the surface of the planet.
Jericho is believed to have been continuously inhabited from 9,000 BC. Archaeologists have unearthed more than 20 remains of successive settlements, which are said to go back as far as 11,000 years. Jericho is mentioned in the biblical and is located on the banks of the Jordan River, at the bottom of the slope that leads to the mountainous plateau of Judah, about 8 km from the northern coast of the Dead Sea dry basin, almost 240 m below the level of the Mediterranean Sea and approximately 27 km from Jerusalem.
Some say it isn’t Jericho, but Damascus the oldest city on Earth.
This ancient city was established sometimes between 10,000 and 8,000 BC, and many authors argue Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth.
Consisting of a maze of narrow alleys, the walled city of Damascus characterized by stunning ancient doors leading into radiant courtyards and blank-faced houses.
Damascus is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed the “Jasmine City” it is the capital and the second largest city in Syria after Aleppo.
Byblos is believed to have been inhabited since 5,000 BC and is considered by many authors the third oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth. It is believed that it was founded around the year 5000 BC, and according to sources attributed to the Phoenician historian Sanjuniatón, was built by Crono, and was the first Phoenician city.
This ancient metropolis was founded by the Phoenicians, despite the fact that its name was given to it by Greeks, who imported large amounts of papyrus from it.
In fact, the English word ‘bible’ derives from Byblos.
Aleppo in Syria is another ancient city worth including in our list of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth.
Ruins of the Ancient city of Aleppo.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
According to scholars, this ancient city was inhabited from around 4,300 BC. It’s currently Syria’s most populated city with around 4.4 million inhabitants.
The ancient city was founded around 4,300 BC as Halab, and the ruins of the ancient city have not been excavated nor studied by experts.
History In Pictures@HistoryInPix
16th-c. Ottoman miniature by Matrakçi Nasuh depicting the city of Aleppo in Syria w historic citadel in center
During the city’s long history, Aleppo was under Hittite control until around 800 BV, after which it passed to Assyrian, Greek, and Persian hands. It was also occupied by the Romans, Byzantines and Arabs. The city of Aleppo was besieged by the Crusaders and was also invaded by the Mongols and Ottomans. In modern times, the city is a war zone, and most of its history has been lost in conflict.
The ancient city of Sidon, another wonder of the ancient world.
Considered as one of the most important ancient Phoenician cities, Sidon is located some 40 kilometers south of Beirut. According to experts, archaeological excavations have found evidence of human occupation since 4,000 BC. Before being captured by the Assyrians, this city was the capital of the Elamite Empire. It was also ruled by Cyrus the Great. It currently has a population of around 65,000 people.
Reports: People are seeing something odd in the sky in Phoenix and in Yuma
Reports: People are seeing something odd in the sky in Phoenix and in Yuma
We have been getting reports in our newsroom of something odd in the sky, as they look west. People are seeing it in Phoenix and in Yuma. We are working to get more information.
Meanwhile, if you have photos of what's going on, we'd love to see them
#BREAKING: We have been getting reports in our newsroom of something odd in the sky to the west. People are seeing it in Phoenix and in Yuma. We are working to get more information. Meanwhile, if you have photos of what's going on, we'd love to see them.
Thanks to New Criterion's Andrew Stuttaford, now we know what devout UFO-logists were up to on the latest anniversary of the appearance of a well-identified flying object that turned up one sweltering day in the high desert.
"After losing my way last summer in a tiny town best known as the deathplace of Billy the Kid," Mr. Stuttaford writes in the March issue, "I eventually located the right desert highway. Outperforming the alleged aliens who, 70 years before, had allegedly crashed their alleged spacecraft nearby, I swept past a welcome sign decorated with--in honor of a cowtown's real and imagined pasts--cattle and a flying saucer, and reached Roswell, N.M., in one piece."
"The city of Roswell," announced the Welcome sign, "invites UFO enthusiasts and skeptics alike to join in the celebration of one of the most debated incidents in history."
Clearly history ain't what she used to be if the existence or non-existence of a pile of scraps turned out to be one of its most debated topics. Lincoln-Douglas this debate never was. Instead it proved a mix of circus sideshow and local chamber-of-commerce promotion. What a strange interlude between Twilight Zone episodes and what might be called the country's first outburst of post-nuclear phobias.
A photo by Mr. Stuttaford shows alien kitsch at his hotel's front desk, and notes that there is "an alien face on the elevator floor and each elevator button too." Enough should have been more than enough, but it seems Americans still haven't learned where to stop when it comes to wretched excess: "Applebee's held itself aloof, but Arby's was ready to 'welcome' unsuspecting aliens. A little green matador graced the walls of a Mexican restaurant, and the striking architecture of one local McDonald's paid tribute to a saucer that never was. Downtown, an immense metallic construction with a pointed rocket nose turned out to be an old grain silo, a disappointment dispelled by a $2 'black light spacewalk' in a nearby souvenir store, the not-exactly-NASA Roswell Space Center."
How in the world, or rather in the space-time continuum, did this fad ever get started, and how will it end, if ever? Your guess is as good as mine, Gentle Reader of Arkansas' Newspaper full of news, opinion and zany doings from all over.
But this much I can be sure of by personal experience as a public information officer in Uncle Sam's army, where an order is still an order: On July 8, 1947, when the commander of the base told his PIO to put out a press release on the much disputed matter, that's just what Lieutenant Walter Haut did. "The many rumors regarding the flying disc," it proclaimed, "became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group . . . was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc."
What a typically modern transmogrification and inflation of what was an illegitimate news story in the first place: "RAAF [Roswell Army Air Field] Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region," read the headlines on the Roswell Daily Record's front page, and if you're so moved you can buy a reproduction of it in forms ranging from T-shirts to refrigerator magnets. Anything for a buck. For there's still one born every minute in this land of the free and all too gullible.
In his press release, Lieutenant Haut said the aforementioned disc had been duly inspected, "then loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters." But it was higher headquarters that let this scrawny cat out of its torn bag by telling the press that this celebrated hunk of junk was only a balloon, or rather the remains of a weather balloon plus the radar reflectors attached to it.
You could almost sense the air of disappointment when the Roswell Daily Record had to announce that "General Ramey Empties Roswell Saucer." Mac Brazel, the innocent local who discovered the mysterious fragments, said he was sorry he'd ever spread the story in the first place. But he felt obliged to add in his own defense that "he had previously found two weather observation balloons on the ranch, but . . . what he found this time did not in any way resemble either of these . . ."
But hope, or rather self-delusion, springs eternal among the UFO-logists, and so they go on peering expectantly at the night sky waiting for the next big story--or at least the next big rumor--to break. And when or if it does, then this story, myth or just rumor will surely spring into its eternal life once again.
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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A diagram showing the final moments of a US Air Force C-118 that crashed near Bonney Lake on April 1, 1959. (U.S. Air Force)
LISTEN: UFO mystery in Bonney Lake
On the evening of Wednesday, April 1, 1959, an Air Force C-118 – that’s the military version of a DC-6 airliner – was on a training exercise. It was doing “touch and go” landings at McChord Air Force Base, or what’s now JBLM, taking off and landing, and then flying around the nearby countryside.
At about 8:12 p.m. that night, the tower at McChord asked the pilots of the C-118 to delay their next return to the runway because several fighter planes were landing. The C-118 headed east toward Bonney Lake to fly in a holding pattern.
It was about five minutes later when something went terribly wrong. The C-118 went down.
And within a few days, some people were blaming a UFO. Some still aren’t sure what exactly happened.
The crash site
Lee Corbin is a retired military and airline pilot who for many years has been researching the story of what happened to the C-118. Last Friday, Corbin led a reporter on a hike to a wooded area not far from Highway 410, during an unusual bout of springtime snow.
The woods where Corbin walked are in Pierce County near Bonney Lake, south of Highway 410, and not far from the growing “master planned community” called Tehaleh. Corbin had parked his truck off the side of the road, near a dead end that will one day connect the east and west halves of the development, and then walked up a gentle slope and onto a woodsy plateau.
“At the time this happened, and this is where the UFO controversy comes in, is supposedly the [pilot] made a radio call saying ‘We’ve hit something or something has hit us,’” Corbin said, leading the way along an old logging or fire road leftover from when the land belonged to Weyerhaeuser.
“[And] you don’t find [mention of that] in any of the accident reports, interestingly enough, but several newspapers carried that story,” Corbin said.
That quote mentioned by Corbin – with the pilots reporting some kind of collision – was attributed to Colonel Robert E. Booth, commander of the 1705th Air Transport Group. It appeared in the Seattle Times on April 2, 1959.
What had happened, it was later reported by the Air Force, was that the pilot and co-pilot thought the tower at McChord was tracking the plane’s altitude, and the tower thought the pilot and co-pilot were tracking their own altitude.
It was dark, and there weren’t many houses or lights in that area in those days. As it turned out, the plane was flying too low to clear a place called “Spar Pole Hill” near Orting. The right wing of the C-118 struck the treetops there. The wing was badly damaged, and it caught fire, but the plane kept flying.
Six or so miles north of Spar Pole Hill, the damage from striking the trees proved to be too much.
“The right wing peels off the airplane, and about this same time the co-pilot makes a radio call saying ‘This is it,’ because they know they’re going in,” Corbin said.
The pilot was later credited with somehow steering the plane clear of the homes and businesses in and around downtown Orting.
“So the airplane loses its wing, rolls inverted, then just basically noses in right here,” Corbin said, pointing to a wooded area, dense with underbrush and 50-foot tall evergreens.
The plane crashed and exploded, and a huge fire consumed much of the wreckage and was still smoldering the next day. At the crash site on Friday, Lee Corbin easily found pieces of the wreckage – small chunks of thick and twisted aluminum, some with rivets still attached – just sitting on the forest floor.
All four men aboard the plane died in the fiery crash, including 1st Lieutenant Robert Roy Dimick, the pilot; 1st Lieutenant Thomas E. Lasater, co-pilot; and Technical Sergeant Guy J. Cunningham and Staff Sergeant Arthur T. Foote, both flight engineers.
Corbin has researched military aviation accidents around the Northwest, and he lives not too far from the site of the C-118 crash. He’d ultimately like to see some kind of monument to the crew of the C-118, maybe when the Tehaleh development reaches this, so far, relatively untouched piece of land.
Corbin has also been in touch with the developers and asked them to keep him apprised when work is set to begin in the area near where the C-118 crashed, so that he can help keep a lookout for artifacts that might turn up during any tree removal or excavation.
What actually caused the crash? Officially, the Air Force cited “operator error” and “supervisory error” in the downing of the C-118, pointing to the confusion over who was keeping track of the plane’s altitude.
But in addition to the crash that night, a series of sonic booms had been heard and felt around much of the Puget Sound, and a series of odd and seemingly inexplicable lights had been witnessed near Bonney Lake. This, combined with the news that the pilot had reported that they might’ve hit something, helped spawn theories that the crash was caused by a collision with a UFO.
These theories were collected and written about by a Seattle firefighter named Bob Gribble. Gribble was a pioneer in the amateur scientific study of UFOs – and sharing of information – going back to the 1950s. He’s in his 90s now, and reportedly suffering from dementia.
Gribble is best known in the UFO community for founding the National UFO Reporting Center and UFO hotline in Seattle in the 1970s. When Gribble stepped down from running the hotline, a UW fisheries school graduate named Peter Davenport volunteered to take over.
Davenport had witnessed a UFO as a small child with his family in St. Louis back in the 1950s, and he wrote about UFOs for a local paper in New Hampshire as a teenager.
In July 1994, Davenport heard that Bob Gribble was thinking of closing down the hotline. So he called him up.
“We talked, and before I knew it, Bob said, ‘Would you like the hotline?’ He said, ‘If you’d like it, it’s yours,’” Davenport said by telephone late last week.
“I accepted the responsibility for the hotline in that conversation,” Davenport said. “There are many times when I wished I’d turned my back on the generous offer and not accepted it, because it has resulted in tens of thousands of hours of work, very interesting work in many instances, but work nevertheless.”
Davenport calls the hotline “work,” but it’s more of a volunteer project or labor of scientific love.
“Most of the expenses are met by me, out of my savings, in order to keep the process going. It’s a measure of my dedication to the field, but I’m convinced that we are being visited, frequently visited, by these objects we call UFOs,” Davenport said.
“The US government, is trying to convince people that it’s all a hoax and a fiction, but I don’t believe so,” Davenport said. “And I think it’s extremely important . . . that the American people know the truth about the UFO phenomenon.”
Peter Davenport was based in Seattle for more than 20 years and only recently moved his residence – and the hotline – to Eastern Washington. He’s heard as a guest, discussing recent UFO reports almost every week on “Coast to Coast AM,” broadcast nightly at 10pm on KIRO Radio.
As for the Bonney Lake crash, it’s not as famous as the time when Kenneth Arnold coined the term “flying saucer” near Mount Rainier in 1947 or the Maury Island Incident in the same year, but Peter Davenport had heard of it.
“I think Bob Gribble did mention this case to me once before,” Davenport said. “What triggered my memory was the fact that the plane appeared to have been pressed down vertically to earth rather than hitting, striking the earth at a slant angle.”
Gribble published an article in May 1959 in a publication called “A.P.R.O. Bulletin” – short for “Aerial Phenomena Research Organization.” Gribble’s piece detailed his investigations into the Bonney Lake crash. He described the odd sounds and lights that many witnesses had reported that evening, and what he described as the “silencing” of local officials in Orting – by the military – about what had really happened on the night of April 1, 1959.
UFO mystery years later
Nearly 60 years later, it doesn’t really help clear things up much to see that the crash investigation report prepared back then by the US Air Force still has about two pages of text redacted—even though Lee Corbin has tried for years to get the full report and has been denied multiple times.
All those details aside, it’s fascinating to hear Peter Davenport describe the big-picture, scientific and non-sensationalized national approach that Bob Gribble took to studying UFOs, from right here in Seattle.
“He set up the National UFO Reporting Center and the Aerial Phenomena Research Group, and he also formed a telephone hotline which is the hotline I run today,” Davenport said. “It’s been in continuous operation since October of 1974.” Gribble, Davenport says, also did mass mailings of information about the hotline to law enforcement agencies around the country, to make sure word got out that there was a place to call to report UFO sightings.
As it turns out, Bob Gribble was just one of several nationally influential people in this area who compiled information and studied UFOs for decades.
Dr. Marilyn Childs and her late husband Laurence Childs moved to Seattle in 1971 and were the first husband-and-wife team of UFO investigators. They were part of a local chapter of group called the Mutual UFO Network, or “MUFON” for short.
“What we did was, we kept the metaphysical part out of MUFON,” Childs said earlier this week. “There’s a lot of us who do believe in this stuff, but we want to keep it strictly scientific . . . because if it’s going to [be taken seriously], we’re going to have to do that.”
“So we concentrated on mainly education and scientific research, and we trained our people,” many of whom were engineers from Boeing and Fluke, Childs said.
The various groups also got along with each other, and the members of different organizations attended each other’s meetings and were supportive of their groups’ respective activities.
Marilyn Childs says this was unusual compared to what she heard about or saw in other parts of the country.
“I haven’t ever heard of anybody working together like we all did,” Childs said. “But we just loved each other and nobody was on a big ego trip, and it just worked out perfectly.”
The earlier era described by Childs sounds downright idyllic, and it also seems to have changed somewhat in recent years.
Meanwhile, Peter Davenport is not sure about who’s going to take over the hotline when he retires. He’s also not sure about what will happen to the decades of UFO reports that he and Bob collected. Aside from their value to UFO researchers, these records likely say much about broad aspects of American culture and the human psyche.
“I’ve approached the University of Washington to inquire whether they’d like to have my records, and they expressed disinterest,” Davenport said. “The library said, ‘Because we don’t have courses in the subject, we’re not interested in having the archives.’ Which makes sense, I guess. I might just burn it. There’s very little good that the archives would do if people are not going to pay attention . . . I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t have a solution to that problem.”
Davenport may also write a book about his experiences, but he says it likely won’t be strictly about UFOs.
“It will be about the peculiar facets of human psychology that I’ve been witness to as a UFO investigator,” Davenport said. “People do and say and believe strange things, some of which are true, most of which, in my opinion, are probably not true.”
“But it’s hard to know for sure.”
Have you seen or experienced a UFO? Peter Davenport wants to hear about it! Reach him via the National UFO Reporting Center.
Open Minds UFO Radio: In this episode, we held a UFO roundtable at Treefort’s Hackfort in Boise, Idaho. Treefort is a massive music festival held in downtown Boise. Alejandro was invited to participate on a media panel, and also moderated a panel on UFO tech with Ben Hansen, UFO researcher and former host of Syfy’s Fact or Faked: The Paranormal Files, and Marc D’Antonio, the Mutual UFO Network’s photo and video analyst. Marc appears on several TV shows, such as NASA’s Unexplained Files, and most recently, an upcoming episode of the reboot of In Search Of. Karen Brard, the owner of the International UFO Congress, was also present to lend her insight. We discuss UFOs and the youth, the success of our Hackfort UFO panel and recent UFO news.
For more information about the International UFO Congress, visit: UFOCongress.com
For more information about Marc D’Antonio, visit: fxmodels.com
Fore more information about Ben Hansen, visit: BenHansen.com
2 airline pilots report seeing UFO while flying over Arizona
2 airline pilots report seeing UFO while flying over Arizona
Two airline pilots traveling over Arizona claim they were passed by an unidentified flying objects while flying at over 30,000 feet in the air. CBS Denver reports that both planes reported the sighting and now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released a radio broadcast of the out-of-this-world incident.
According to the radio logs, pilots of a Learjet operated by Phoenix Air and an American Airlines flight saw the object flying in the opposite direction of their planes on Feb. 24. In a copy of the conversation with the Albuquerque Center air traffic control, the Phoenix Air pilot makes the first sighting of the strange object at around 3:30 p.m. local time.
"Was anybody above us that passed us like 30 seconds ago?" the pilot asks in a tape released to the Phoenix New Times. The answer from the FAA was "negative."
With the Learjet's close encounter still on their minds, the FAA in Albuquerque alerts American Airlines Flight 1095 to keep an eye out for an object in the sky as they fly towards San Diego. Less than a minute after the warning, Flight 1095's pilot radios in that his plane was just passed by the UFO.
"Yeah, something just passed over us," the pilot reported. "I don't know what it was, but it was at least two-three thousand feet above us. Yeah, it passed right over the top of us."
The pilots couldn't determine if the unidentified object was hovering or actually flying but the American Airlines pilot can be heard saying the UFO had a "big reflection" and doubted it was a Google balloon.
"Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area," the FAA's Lynn Lunsford told the New Times. Coincidentally, the UFO sighting took place just 500 miles away from Roswell, New Mexico. Roswell is home to the most famous UFO stories in U.S. history as a flying saucer allegedly crashed in the desert there in 1947.
In a statement to KOB-TV in Albuquerque, the FAA said it doesn't know what the object is either.
"We don't have any comment beyond what you hear. Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area," the statement read. "We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons."
The radio logs come three months after video captured by U.S. Navy pilots offered an inside look at a secretive government program that investigated UFOs. The little-known Pentagon program had a budget of about $22 million, according to the civilian intelligence officer who used to run it. Most of the sightings it looked at were by U.S. military personnel, who have been reporting UFO sightings for decades.
2 airline pilots report seeing UFO while flying over Arizona
Photograph of one of the tracks beside a digitally-enhanced image of the same feature. Note the toe impressions and arch indicating that this is a right footprint.
Image credits: Duncan McLaren.
Canada’s Pacific Coast isn’t the nicest place to go looking for archaeological remains. It’s covered by thick, lush forests, and much of it is only accessible by boat. But scientists weren’t deterred by this. They excavated intertidal beach sediments on the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia.
After a painstaking analysis, they identified 29 human footprints of at least three different sizes in these sediments. Using enhanced photography, they were able to clearly distinguish the footprints, and conclude that they probably belonged to two adults and one child, all barefoot.
“This article details the discovery of footprints on the west coast of Canada with associated radiocarbon dates of 13,000 years before present,” says Duncan McLaren, lead author of the study. “This finding provides evidence of the seafaring people who inhabited this area during the tail end of the last major ice age.”
At the end of the last ice age, sea level was 2-3 meters lower than it is today. This provides evidence that peoples in the Americas were using watercraft and exploring and thriving in coastal areas, McLaren told ZME Science. Along with the footprints, archaeologists also found several artifacts, indicating that people were passing through the area.
“We found a few stone tools with the footprints. We found them while subsurface testing for archaeological deposits dating between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago use the local sea level history as a guide,” McLaren added for ZME Science.
This finding adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans used a coastal route to move from Asia to North America during the last ice age. The authors suggest that further excavations with more advanced methods are likely to uncover more human footprints in the area and would help to piece together the patterns of early human settlement on the coast of North America.
Currently, researchers are carrying out preservation work around the footprints, also looking for similar areas which might yield valuable traces of ancient civilizations.
“We have stopped excavating the footprint to preserve them }for future generations. Our research now turns to finding other areas on the coast that may have been ice free during the last ice age,” McLaren concluded.
Journal Reference: McLaren D, Fedje D, Dyck A, Mackie Q, Gauvreau A, Cohen J (2018) Terminal Pleistocene epoch human footprints from the Pacific coast of Canada. PLoS ONE 13(3): e0193522. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193522
Photograph of one of the tracks beside a digitally-enhanced image of the same feature. Note the toe impressions and arch indicating that this is a right footprint.
Image credits: Duncan McLaren.
Canada’s Pacific Coast isn’t the nicest place to go looking for archaeological remains. It’s covered by thick, lush forests, and much of it is only accessible by boat. But scientists weren’t deterred by this. They excavated intertidal beach sediments on the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia.
After a painstaking analysis, they identified 29 human footprints of at least three different sizes in these sediments. Using enhanced photography, they were able to clearly distinguish the footprints, and conclude that they probably belonged to two adults and one child, all barefoot.
“This article details the discovery of footprints on the west coast of Canada with associated radiocarbon dates of 13,000 years before present,” says Duncan McLaren, lead author of the study. “This finding provides evidence of the seafaring people who inhabited this area during the tail end of the last major ice age.”
At the end of the last ice age, sea level was 2-3 meters lower than it is today. This provides evidence that peoples in the Americas were using watercraft and exploring and thriving in coastal areas, McLaren told ZME Science. Along with the footprints, archaeologists also found several artifacts, indicating that people were passing through the area.
“We found a few stone tools with the footprints. We found them while subsurface testing for archaeological deposits dating between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago use the local sea level history as a guide,” McLaren added for ZME Science.
This finding adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans used a coastal route to move from Asia to North America during the last ice age. The authors suggest that further excavations with more advanced methods are likely to uncover more human footprints in the area and would help to piece together the patterns of early human settlement on the coast of North America.
Currently, researchers are carrying out preservation work around the footprints, also looking for similar areas which might yield valuable traces of ancient civilizations.
“We have stopped excavating the footprint to preserve them }for future generations. Our research now turns to finding other areas on the coast that may have been ice free during the last ice age,” McLaren concluded.
Journal Reference: McLaren D, Fedje D, Dyck A, Mackie Q, Gauvreau A, Cohen J (2018) Terminal Pleistocene epoch human footprints from the Pacific coast of Canada. PLoS ONE 13(3): e0193522. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193522
Photograph of one of the tracks beside a digitally-enhanced image of the same feature. Note the toe impressions and arch indicating that this is a right footprint.
Image credits: Duncan McLaren.
Canada’s Pacific Coast isn’t the nicest place to go looking for archaeological remains. It’s covered by thick, lush forests, and much of it is only accessible by boat. But scientists weren’t deterred by this. They excavated intertidal beach sediments on the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia.
After a painstaking analysis, they identified 29 human footprints of at least three different sizes in these sediments. Using enhanced photography, they were able to clearly distinguish the footprints, and conclude that they probably belonged to two adults and one child, all barefoot.
“This article details the discovery of footprints on the west coast of Canada with associated radiocarbon dates of 13,000 years before present,” says Duncan McLaren, lead author of the study. “This finding provides evidence of the seafaring people who inhabited this area during the tail end of the last major ice age.”
At the end of the last ice age, sea level was 2-3 meters lower than it is today. This provides evidence that peoples in the Americas were using watercraft and exploring and thriving in coastal areas, McLaren told ZME Science. Along with the footprints, archaeologists also found several artifacts, indicating that people were passing through the area.
“We found a few stone tools with the footprints. We found them while subsurface testing for archaeological deposits dating between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago use the local sea level history as a guide,” McLaren added for ZME Science.
This finding adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans used a coastal route to move from Asia to North America during the last ice age. The authors suggest that further excavations with more advanced methods are likely to uncover more human footprints in the area and would help to piece together the patterns of early human settlement on the coast of North America.
Currently, researchers are carrying out preservation work around the footprints, also looking for similar areas which might yield valuable traces of ancient civilizations.
“We have stopped excavating the footprint to preserve them }for future generations. Our research now turns to finding other areas on the coast that may have been ice free during the last ice age,” McLaren concluded.
Journal Reference: McLaren D, Fedje D, Dyck A, Mackie Q, Gauvreau A, Cohen J (2018) Terminal Pleistocene epoch human footprints from the Pacific coast of Canada. PLoS ONE 13(3): e0193522. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193522
When I was but a young boy, the only time anyone talked about flying saucers was after watching a movie about them, or seeing an episode of Twilight Zone, or Science Fiction Theater.
Then one morning, I was scanning over our local newspaper, and noticed about three pages deep this heading, “New Hampshire Couple Encounters UFO.”
Well, needless to say, I was intrigued. In our small town paper, you just didn’t see things on this type of subject.
As I began to read the article, I was astounded to see that these two people claimed to have been abducted by aliens, and taken inside the ship!
Well, that was enough for me to think, “What is this, some kind of joke?”
I thought I had heard the last of it, but I had not.
Bust of alien “Junior” and dress Betty Hill wore night she says she was abducted.
Soon, this story became an international one, and even today, is still considered one of the most believable, and certainly most researched UFO cases, except for maybe the Roswell incident. One thing about this whole subject that seems odd to me, is that it is considered within the realm of possibility that someone could see a UFO, but for someone to be taken aboard one, NO WAY.
In 1961, Barney Hill was a 39 year old black man who worked for the US Postal Service. His wife Betty was a 41 year old white woman, who owned a Master’s Degree, and was the supervisor for the child welfare department. The fact that the Hills were an interracial couple has been given weight by some who state that Barney was suffering stress in dealing with some public ridicule about the black and white union, which was not nearly as readily accepted in the early 1960s as it is today. In my research into Mr. Hill’s life, I can’t find any reason for his stress being the cause of telling such an incredible story. What ensued after the couple went public with their story, was much more stressful to him than any anti-racial remarks he may have encountered.
The story of Betty and Barney Hill begins in September 1961, in the state of New Hampshire. Barney had recently developed an ulcer, and he and his wife Betty decided to take a short vacation to Canada. The couple had visited Niagara Falls, and Montreal, and on the 19th of the month, they began their journey back home to Portsmouth. The night was clear, with a crescent moon shining on the heavily wooded landscape, that surrounded US Route 3 in the central part of New Hampshire. At about a quarter past 10:00 P.M., three miles south of the city of Lancaster, Barney noticed what appeared to be a bright star, or planet which seemed to move erratically. Barney pointed this out to Betty, and they both began to keep track of the object.
The couple began to believe that they were watching a plane, appear and disappear, as the movement of their vehicle caused the trees to come and go in obstructing their view. Later Barney would state that he tried to convince himself that the object was a plane, but that Betty thought it to be something else; an unidentified craft of some kind. As the two continued to the Flume, just north of North Woodstock, the object appeared to move in an odd way. As they reached Indian Head, Barney actually stopped the car to have a look at the object with his binoculars. He saw multicolored lights, and rows of windows on a flat-shaped object, which now seemed to be moving toward him. As the object moved to within a hundred feet of him, he could see occupants inside. Frightened, he ran back to his car where Betty waited. They climbed inside and sped away. Soon, two hours of their lives would vanish into oblivion.
Betty and Barney Hill
After resuming their journey home, they were not able to see the strange craft anymore. Oddly though, they heard a beeping sound. They then heard the beeping a second time, noticing that they were suddenly thirty-five miles farther down the road than a minute or two ago. They were now in Ashla. The mood in the car was quiet as they proceeded home, and went to bed. They both slept until the next afternoon. When Betty got up, she called her sister Janet, and told her what had happened. Janet told her to call nearby Pease Air Force Base, and report what she had seen. Betty reported the incident, speaking to Major Paul W. Henderson, who told Betty; “The UFO was also confirmed by our radar.” It is important to note at this point that Barney was against calling the sighting in to the base, hoping to keep it quiet.
At this time, neither Betty nor Barney recalled any abduction. Soon, Betty began having nightmarish dreams of her and her husband being taken aboard a craft of some kind, against their will. In a matter of weeks, two writers got wind of the story, and after interviewing the Hills, made an intensive log of the events of the night. They discovered that there were two hours of unaccounted time in the Hill’s story, even allowing for stops for the Hills, and breaks for their dog, who also had made the trip with them.
Map of the Hill’s travels on the night of Sept, 19, 1961, when they said they were abducted by aliens in the New Hampshire White Mountains.
Another interesting note that I should interject here is that these “two writers,” which are mentioned in almost every report of this incident, (and there are literally thousands of them), have not been named, or I cannot find their names.
However, the story is true, because their interview was attended by Major James MacDonald, a former Air Force Intelligence Officer. Shortly after Betty began having these disturbing dreams, she wrote a letter to Major Donald Kehoe, who passed her information on to one Walter Webb, who was on the staff of the Hayden Planetarium. Webb, at the time, was a scientific advisor for the National Investigations Committee on Arial Phenomena. (commonly referred to as NICAP) What he did with the report is unknown.
It was Major MacDonald who made the suggestion to the Hills that regressive hypnosis might account for the two hours of missing time. In the spring of 1962, the Hills contacted a psychiatrist about the hypnosis sessions, but decided to put it off for a time. All the while, Betty was still haunted by the dreams, and Barney’s ulcer was worse, and he was again suffering from hypertension.
After dodging reporters, and doing some research on psychiatrists, the Hills made a decision to contact well-known Boston psychiatrist and neurologist, Dr. Benjamin Simon, who was one of the most respected doctors in his field.
After a couple of initial interviews, Dr. Simon’s preliminary diagnosis was “anxiety syndrome,” relating to the incidents of the night of September 19, 1961. His next step was to find out what those events were.
The method of treatment that Dr. Simon chose for the Hills was regressive hypnosis, which was meant to get to the source of their problem, whatever that may have been. He began the sessions on Barney, and then followed up with the same treatment for Betty.
The process was slow, but after six months, it was Dr. Simon’s expert opinion that the Hills had been abducted, and taken aboard an unknown flying craft on the night in question.
Anyone who is deeply interested in these sessions, can see transcripts of them in an excellent book on the entire Hill story, “The Interrupted Journey,” written by award-winning investigative author John G. Fuller. The Hills’ story was also included in a two-part article in “Look” magazine, and a movie, “The UFO Incident,” a made-for-TV production. The movie was released in 1976, and starred Estelle Parsons as Betty, and James Earl Jones as Barney.
After the many sessions with Dr. Simon, the following details became evident. The Hills related that their car had stalled, and then the alien craft landed on the road in front of their vehicle, forming a kind of roadblock, hailing them down. They were taken into the craft, and given medical examinations by these aliens, and before being released, were ordered under hypnosis not to recount any of the details of their incident.
The entities were described by the Hills as “…bald-headed alien beings, about five foot tall, with greyish skin, pear shaped heads and slanting cat-like eyes.”– This was the very first mention in UFO folklore of the so-called “greys.” The Hills were taken into separate rooms during their examinations. These “tests” involved both physical and mental procedures.
As part of these tests, skin, hair and nail samples were taken. Betty had a long needle inserted into her navel, and was told it was a pregnancy test. Under duress, Barney related that he had given a semen specimen. Betty stated that she was given a kind of book as a token of her visit, but this item was later taken back.
Another odd fact related under hypnosis was that the aliens seemed to have no conception of time, or of colors, whatever this may mean.
At one point, the aliens seemed surprised to find that Barney’s teeth (dentures) could be removed and replaced. Betty asked one of her abductors where they were from, and in reply, she was shown a star map of sorts, which will be discussed in more detail later.
After these events, the Hills were taken back to their car, and the last thing they remembered was an orange glow disappearing into the night sky. It is very important to note that the Hills tried to keep these events out of the press, but unfortunately, an inaccurate version of the events was leaked to the press, after which, the Hills decided to come forward with the true events of the case.
Dr. Simon was under a great amount of pressure to release whatever information the Hills authorized about their case. This was considered prudent, not to exploit the story, but to stop speculation that the absence of a statement by him would seem to shed a negative light on the Hills’ story. Simon concluded that the Hills were not fabricating their story.
He further stated that he there were several conclusions that could be reached. [1] “The experience actually happened, or, [2] some perceptive and illusory misinterpretations occurred in relationship to some real event.” What the “real event” may be, I do not know.
As the facts of the Hills’ case came to public knowledge, two notable, respectable professionals investigated the story, and made their conclusions. One was Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who was at the time, Professor of Astronomy at Northwestern University, and later to be an Air Force Consultant on Aerial Phenomena.
He eventually would create his own “Center For UFO studies.” The other was Stanton T. Friedman, a nuclear physicist and the nation’s only space scientist devoting full time to researching the UFO phenomenon.
As a consultant to Project Blue Book, Hynek later released the book, “The UFO Experience,” in which he discussed the Hills’ case. I will insert his own words here; “Under repeated hypnosis they independently revealed what had supposedly happened.
The two stories agreed in considerable detail, although neither Betty nor Barney was privy to what the other had said under hypnosis until much later.
Under hypnosis they stated that they had been taken separately aboard the craft, treated well by the occupants – rather as humans might treat experimental animals – and then released after having been given the hypnotic suggestion that they would remember nothing of that particular experience. The method of their release supposedly accounted for the amnesia, which was apparently broken only by counter hypnosis.
Dr. Stanton Friedman spent many long hours with the Hills, discussing the case, and being a nut and bolts man, issued this statement; “By no stretch of the imagination could anyone who knows them conclude that they were nuts,” he emphasizes. The Hills had been interviewed and questioned by others scientists and investigators; some under hypnosis, and all are in agreement on one important fact.
The Hills did NOT make their story up, and the events put forward are based upon some REAL event. Although Barney and Betty were in an interracial marriage, which unfortunately cast an unfavorable shadow on them, we must remember that Betty had a Master’s Degree in social work, and Barney served on the governor of New Hampshire’s Civil Rights Commission.
Both of them were well-respected by those who knew them or worked with them. What benefit they could have gained from such an elaborate hoax I cannot imagine.
Although many so-called abductees have lost their livelihoods because of their stories, the Hills did not, and remained involved in previous activities to the extent that the interruptions of what happened allowed them.
As I mentioned earlier, when Betty was aboard the craft, she stated she was shown a star map, and was asked by one of the humanoids, “Where are you on the map?” to which she shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”
There has been an immense amount of discussion about the so-called “star map,” and a lot of its interpretation is up for grabs. A full understanding of astronomy would be required to study its plotting and try to find its pattern in a specific point in the skies. I am certainly not qualified to undertake this task, but I will tell you what I consider some of the more reasonable explanations by professionals.
The map that Betty says she was shown was a three-dimensional view with different size dots and lines on it.
I vividly recall at the time of this incident, that the fact that scientists could not find any constellation that fit its markings, put much doubt on the Hills claims. However, approximately 8 years thereafter, when more powerful telescopes came into use, several scientists claim to have found a match for this map.
Being intrigued with the mystery of the map, (which Betty drew from hypnosis), an Ohio schoolteacher and amateur astronomer Marjorie Fish became involved in the case in 1969. Wondering if the stars and planets on the map would match any known celestial objects, Fish got an interview with Betty Hill in the summer of 1969.
Barney Hill had died earlier the same year from a cerebral hemorrhage. After a lengthy discussion with Betty, Fish released the following statement:
“On Aug. 4, 1969, Betty Hill discussed the star map with me. Betty explained that she drew the map in 1964 under posthypnotic suggestion. It was to be drawn only if she could remember it accurately, and she was not to pay attention to what she was drawing – which puts it in the realm of automatic drawing.
This is a way of getting at repressed or forgotten material and can result in unusual accuracy. She made two erasures showing her conscious mind took control part of the time.
Betty described the map as three-dimensional, like looking through a window.
The stars were tinted and glowed. The map material was flat and thin (not a model), and there were no noticeable lenticular lines like one of our three-dimensional processes. (It sounds very much like a reflective hologram.)”
Betty did not shift her position while viewing it, so we cannot tell if it would give the same three-dimensional view from all positions or if it would be completely three-dimensional. Betty estimated the map was approximately three feet wide and two feet high with the pattern covering most of the map.
Zeta Reticuli is a binary star system located about 39 light years away from Earth. It is located in the constellation Reticulum, and is visible to the unaided eye under very dark skies. Because of the southerly location of the system, it is not visible north of the tropics.
She was standing about three feet away from it. She said there were many other stars on the map but she only (apparently) was able to specifically recall the prominent ones connected by lines and a small distinctive triangle off to the left.
There was no concentration of stars to indicate the Milky Way (galactic plane) suggesting that if it represented reality, it probably only contained local stars. There were no grid lines.”
Three stars in the clusters were unknown until 1969. No Astronomer on earth knew their position in 1963.
Yet Betty Hill drew a map of these stars in 1963. Before I conclude this article, I must point out that I am not one given to shallow evidence from one webpage or a supermarket tabloid.
I am simply taking the role of reporter here, and offer no opinion of my own. Everything included in this article has been confirmed by many investigators, scientists, psychiatrists, etc. I will leave you this one fact:
Astronomers at Ohio State University had a computer put them in their exact position out beyond the double star system of Zeta Reticuli 1 and Zeta Reticuli 2–220 trillion miles, 37 light years from earth, looking toward our sun. The computer duplicated with virtually no variation, the map of Betty Hill.
The Betty and Barney Hill story is an intriguing one, to say the least.
Everyone privy to it’s details is still in wonderment; still seeking answers. It is very difficult to believe that two sane people who were driving to their home, simultaneously had some illusion.
It is also difficult to believe that two well-liked and respected people would make up this story. To what end?
Certainly, they were not seeking public fame, it was about two years from the time of the incident until the time that the Hills made the facts known.
One important fact we must remember: NOT ONE of any of the professional people who had involvement in the case shed a negative light on the fact that something very unusual occurred that night in New Hampshire, or on the Hills personally.
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NASA receives response from Voyager 1 spacecraft 13 billion miles away after 37 years of inactivity
NASA receives response from Voyager 1 spacecraft 13 billion miles away after 37 years of inactivity
The thrusters aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft just did what we thought was impossible. After 37 years of inactivity, NASA just received response from spacecraft 13 billion miles away, NASA said in a statement on its website. Voyager 1 is NASA’s farthest and fastest spacecraft. It was launched on September 5, 1977. Having operated for 40 years, 6 months and 14 days as of March 19, 2018, the spacecraft relies on small devices called thrusters to orient itself so it can communicate with Earth. These thrusters fire in tiny pulses, or “puffs,” lasting mere milliseconds, to subtly rotate the spacecraft so that its antenna points at our planet. Now, the Voyager team is able to use a set of four backup thrusters, dormant since 1980.
In a statement on its website, NASA said: “The Voyager team assembled a group of propulsion experts at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, to study the problem. Chris Jones, Robert Shotwell, Carl Guernsey and Todd Barber analyzed options and predicted how the spacecraft would respond in different scenarios. They agreed on an unusual solution: Try giving the job of orientation to a set of thrusters that had been asleep for 37 years.”
“With these thrusters that are still functional after 37 years without use, we will be able to extend the life of the Voyager 1 spacecraft by two to three years,” said Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
“The Voyager flight team dug up decades-old data and examined the software that was coded in an outdated assembler language, to make sure we could safely test the thrusters,” said Jones, chief engineer at JPL.
In a further testament to the robustness of Voyager 1, the Voyager team completed a successful test of the spacecraft’s “trajectory correction maneuver” (TCM) thrusters on November 28, 2017. The last time these backup thrusters were fired up was in November 1980. Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd anticipates that successful utilization of the TCM thrusters will extend the Voyager mission by an additional “two to three years”.
Voyager 1’s extended mission is expected to continue until around 2025 when its radioisotope thermoelectric generators will no longer supply enough electric power to operate its scientific instruments.
Verstopte president Nixon een tijdcapsule met topgeheime informatie over aliens? Politieke insider doet boekje open
Verstopte president Nixon een tijdcapsule met topgeheime informatie over aliens? Politieke insider doet boekje open
Politiek insider Robert Merritt heeft in een interview met de Dark Journalist gezegd dat hij meerdere ontmoetingen heeft gehad met president Richard Nixon op een locatie onder het Witte Huis.
Tijdens één van de ontmoetingen zou Nixon hem een brief hebben voorgelezen die hij daarna in een tijdcapsule zou hebben gestopt.
De brief bevat volgens Merritt informatie waaruit blijkt dat de VS een buitenaards wezen in haar bezit heeft.
Veel kennis
Wetenschappers van het Los Alamos National Laboratory leerden te communiceren met het wezen en wisten op die manier veel kennis te vergaren, aldus de insider.
Hij zei dat Nixon hem vroeg een pakketje met daarin de brief te overhandigen aan toenmalig nationaal veiligheidsadviseur Henry Kissinger.
De president benadrukte dat verder niemand wist dat de brief bestond en dat hij niet in de handen mocht vallen van de FBI of CIA.
Verstopt
Merritt maakte deel uit van het Huston Plan, een geheim programma waarbij politieke vijanden van Nixon werden bespioneerd.
Hij moest onder meer materiaal verzamelen om senatoren en congresleden te chanteren. Hij stond in de spotlight tijdens de Watergate-hoorzittingen en verscheen later in de New York Times.
Merritt is ervan overtuigd dat de tijdcapsule nog op de plek ligt waar Nixon hem in 1972 heeft verstopt.
Wetenschappers hebben ontdekt dat er een soort snelweg is in ons lichaam waar vloeistof onder de huid loopt en langs heel wat organen passeert. In een artikel op de wetenschapssite Scientific Reports wordt zelfs gesproken over een “nieuw orgaan”. Volgens de ontdekkers zou het netwerk verantwoordelijk kunnen zijn voor de verspreiding van kanker in ons lichaam, wat natuurlijk bijzonder belangrijk is in het onderzoek naar kanker en hoe we het kunnen bestrijden.
It’s rare to see a UFO. It’s more than doubly rare to see two UFOs at the same time, especially if they seem to be flying in tight formation. It’s extremely rare for the event to occur in the daytime, be seen by multiple witnesses and get caught on video. Now that we have those odds set, what are the odds that two UFOs in tight formation apparently flying past a rescue helicopter in France are alien spacecrafts?
A photograph of the incident has come to light after being included in the recently published book, “UFO Photos: Computer Analysis Of Worldwide UFO Images Through The Decades” by Jason Gleave, who says he is ex-Royal Air Force, British Aerospace Airbus Division, with expertise in civilian and military aircraft, experience in computer analysis and an avowed UFO researcher. The photograph is a capture from a video of a 2014 rescue of the crew on the Luno, a cargo ship carrying fertilizer that crashed into a seawall at Anglet on the southwestern coast of France. In his capacity as author and UFO researcher, Gleave had this to say after reviewing the video (seen here) taken by local media covering the rescue operation:
“Upon analyzing the footage, the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close. Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions. Upon closer analysis of the video frames, the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other.”
High velocity? Yes. Dangerously close? Well, the camera was focused on the helicopter, so it’s hard to tell if the twin blurs are dangerously close to the chopper or the camera operator … or “dangerously close” to anything at all. So, if they were drones, it’s difficult to determine if they were “dangerously close” to the helicopter. And, if they really were drones observing the incident, why would they be flying at a “high velocity” rather than hovering or slowly rubbernecking the scene?
What else flies in tight formations? If you said “birds,” you’re our skeptic-of-the-day. Yes, the blurs don’t look anything like birds, but they really don’t look like anything else either – which means you can’t eliminate anything, despite the comments in various Britishmedia outlets by ufologist Nick Pope :
“Jason has been involved in researching and investigating UFOs and other mysteries (like many experts in this field, he uses the phrase ‘high strangeness events’ to describe a lot of this) for many years, but his particular area of expertise is imagery analysis. Jason has skill and experience in carefully examining photos and videos, sorting out the fact from the fiction.”
Yes, the twin UFOs were high, strange and events. So are appearances by Snoop Dogg. Unfortunately, that observation doesn’t bring us dangerously, or even safely, close to identifying them.
How can there still be organs left in the human body to discover? Well, judging from the history of science, it’s because our our methods for analyzing and identifying the many different systems and networks within the body have improved. Think about it: we’ve only been chopping up and poking at the human body for a few centuries. Well, in a scientific sense anyway, not in the destroy-your-enemies-and-eat-their-dismembered-bodies sense. The discovery of DNA is less than a century old, while imaging technologies like magnetic resonance imaging are only a few decades old. Put into context, these relatively recent but groundbreaking advances show how we’re still only beginning to understand the complexities of the human body.
Even more mysteries lie within the folds of the human brain.
Case in point: a team of physicians has just published a studyof what they claim is an organ of the human body which has been completely ignored by medical science until now. They’re calling the organ the interstitium, and describe it as a dense layer of connective tissues found throughout and surrounding nearly the whole body, or a “widespread, macroscopic, fluid-filled space within and between tissues.” The organ was discovered through analyzing frozen body tissues, allowing this fluid-filled layer to retain its form unlike the flat, desiccated samples used in microscopy:
Freezing biopsy tissue before fixation preserved the anatomy of this structure, demonstrating that it is part of the submucosa and a previously unappreciated fluid-filled interstitial space, draining to lymph nodes and supported by a complex network of thick collagen bundles. We observed similar structures in numerous tissues that are subject to intermittent or rhythmic compression, including the submucosae of the entire gastrointestinal tract and urinary bladder, the dermis, the peri-bronchial and peri-arterial soft tissues, and fascia.
If confirmed, the intersitium would become the 80th known organ of the human body. The researchers believe the interstitium serves as a sort of ‘shock absorber’ which helps cushion muscles and organs from impacts or compression due to the movement of the body, while also playing a much more negative role in allowing cancers to metastasize more quickly since the interstitium is connected to the lymphatic system.
Illustration by Jill Gregory, Mount Sinai Health System, licensed under CC-BY-ND.
On a strange note, the researchers claim the interstitium generates a small electrical current as the body moves, which they note might explain the effects of acupuncture. Will the discovery of this new organ lead to new forms of therapy?
Take a look at the lawman Beating up the wrong guy Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know He’s in the best selling show Is there life on … Earth?
Is there a David Bowie-ish starman writing songs in the sky while staring not at Mars but at Earth? If so, unlike Bowie, he (or she or whatever) doesn’t have to wonder if there’s life on Earth anymore. All they have to do it tap into a space probe designed to find life elsewhere that was turned towards Earth and found some on the blue planet. Was it intelligent?
At last week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas, the culmination of this clever and surprisingly eye-opening experiment was presented by Dante Lauretta from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He’s the principal investigator on OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer), a NASA spacecraft launched on September 8,2016, and destined to orbitally study asteroid 101955 Bennu, then get close enough to extend a robot arm holding s shovel, scoop up a surface sample and return it to Earth on or about September 24, 2023.
OSIRIS-REx
If the name “Bennu” sounds familiar, it’s because this asteroid is a Near Earth Object (NEO) that keeps getting closer to Earth on every orbit, with a 1 in 24,000 chance of impact on September 25, 2175; a 1 in 11,000 chance on September 24, 2196; and a cumulative 1 in 2,700 chance of an impact between 2175–2199. That’s one of the reasons it was chosen for the OSIRIS-REx mission, along with the chance to study its pristine carbonaceous material that is from the birth of our solar system.
Yeah, yeah, yeah … what about the signs of life on Earth?
It turns out this experiment was conducted once before by none other than the late great astronomer Carl Sagan. When the Galileo spacecraft swung around Earth in 1990 to get momentum to carry it to Jupiter, he suggested it search for life on our own planet first. Not surprisingly, it found high levels of methane and oxygen indicating that photosynthesis was occurring on this blue orb. It also picked up radio signals unknown in nature – definite signs of life.
Galileo
On October 2, 2017, OSIRIS-REx was a mere 17,237 km (10,710 miles) above Earth, so Lauretta and his team exercised its instruments – cameras, visible and infrared spectrometers, thermostats – by pointing them at there place or origin. They registered water vapor, carbon dioxide, molecular oxygen and methane in the atmosphere and OSIRIS-REx agreed with fellow spacecraft Galileo that Earth had signs of life.
The bad news came when the two sets of data were compared. OSIRIS-REx measured 12 percent more methane content and 14 percent more carbon dioxide than Galileo. That means air pollution has increased drastically on this blue sphere in the last few decades and shows no sign of going down.
So, there’s your answer. Earth definitely has life … but it’s not too intelligent.
Two UFO's Crossing Private Aircraft Dangerously Close In Mid-Flight
Two UFO's Crossing Private Aircraft Dangerously Close In Mid-Flight
Argentine pilot surprised by two UFO's which buzzed his aircraft dangerously close in mid-flight.
A veteran civilian Argentine pilot filmed out of his cockpit windscreen of his private aircraft flying through dense clouds when two UFOs crossed in front of his aircraft at high speed ‘twice’ in both directions (port to starboard and return direction) before immediately disappearing out of sight at high velocity.
Jason Gleaves, Ufonly, who has analyzed the interesting footage says: it is difficult to determine the actual shape and structure of the two objects, either cylindrical or disk shaped, due to the quality of the original source footage which had been taken on a mobile phone device and the angle the footage was taken (end elevation-side view of the UFOs).
This UFO was in Yahoo news, but it was not a current sighting.
Now here is an interesting video of a UFO over South Korea, however I feel that I have already seen either this video, or a similar craft a few years ago on video.
Wait, I got it, this was something I reported back in 2012. Its a real video, and it is Busan, South Korea, it just that its not new, its from back in July 26, 2012. Below this video, I will place the real video from back in 2012 as proof. You compare. Don't be angry at the reporter, its an easy mistake with noobs on Youtube steal and repost old videos as new. Can happen to anyone.
Captured Strange Tower In Moon And Triangle UFO Taking Off, March 26, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Captured Strange Tower In Moon And Triangle UFO Taking Off, March 26, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 26, 2018
Location of sighting: Earths moon
I was recording the moon when I got home on the 26th and was using a Sony HD Handycam 55X zoom, when I noticed two odd objects poking out of the darkness along the moons edge. They seem to be structures, towards of some sort strategically placed in a location where they can continually observer earth 24/7.
I was having a bit of trouble capturing video of them, because the moon was straight up, and my tripod does not have that area of sight, so I had to hold the camera, which hurts the arms, but managed to capture what I saw.
Also below one of the towers there was a crater and something pinkish white triangular shaped coming out of it and was just slightly smaller than the crater. Almost didn't try that night, was tired after work.
Glowing UFO Caught On Live Internet Cam Flying Around Colima Volcano
Glowing UFO Caught On Live Internet Cam Flying Around Colima Volcano
Many people have been observing the Colima live cam in hopes to record UFOs themselves. YouTube user Tenshi Mex recorded the latest UFO sighting that many consider one of the best around Colima.
The UFO seems coming from below the ground through a passage in the lower centre of the volcano that is not visible to the public. It appears to hover a little bit as it moves from the side of the volcano. It then makes a sudden 180-degree turn moving over and passing the volcano’s mouth.
Many believe that it is one of the best evidence of the existence of UFOs and that the governments of the world should acknowledge it.
Colima has been considered to be a UFO hotspot with an alien base below its surface. Many UFO enthusiasts believe that the latest UFO sighting video around the volcano is just one of much indisputable evidence.
The Ministry of Defence official was visiting friends in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, when he spotted the object in the sky.
He claims to have found no explanation despite years spent professionally tracking the night sky, Express.co.uk reports.
The witness said: “I rather doubt that I am easily deceived by aerial phenomena.
“My distinct impression is that I perceived an event for which no ready explanation is possible in wholly conventional terms.
GETTY
UNCOVERED: His report was given to the Ministry of Defence
“Astronomical phenomena are, I think, ruled out by the extensive cloud cover as well as by the very regular, triangular formation of the three lights seen.
“And aircraft lights seem a very unlikely explanation.”
His report – given to the Ministry of Defence – says the lights moved south-west while he was stood in a friend’s garden.
The UFO supposedly hovered under cloud cover for two to three minutes.
“I rather doubt that I am easily deceived by aerial phenomena”
RAF navigator
The man served in the MoD from 1949 until 1977 and was in the RAF from 1941 to 1946.
The results, which have been making headlines, are a reminder that the truth may well be out there — but it isn’t aliens. A series of discoveries this past year make it clear that, sadly, it never is.
SAD BUT TRUE
Scientists have struggled to explain why this mummy, known as Ata, is the size of a fetus and yet has bones as developed as those of a six- to eight-year-old child, Science reported in 2013. The new analysis of Ata’s DNA, published last week in the journal Genome Research, reports mutations in seven genes key for human growth.
These mutations could explain why Ata’s bones developed so quickly, Gary Nolan, an immunologist at Stanford University and co-author of the study, told National Geographic. He suspects that the story is much sadder and more human than an extraterrestrial visitation: someone gave birth to a stillborn fetus several decades ago and buried her in the desert. “The alien hype was silly pseudoscience promoted for media attention,” paleoanthropologist and anatomist William Jungers told National Geographic. “This paper puts that nonsense and poor little Ata to bed.”
A BIZARRE DEEP SPACE SIGNAL
In the summer of 2017, astronomers at the Arecibo Observatory picked up a strange radio signal that seemed to be coming from a small red dwarf star called Ross 128. But the source of the signal was a mystery: a solar flare on Ross 128 might have produced it, but the frequency of the radio waves didn’t quite fit that theory. Could it have been a deep space call for ET? No such luck. The astronomers discovered a week later that the signal originated much closer to home — most likely from satellites in high geostationary orbit in the same part of the sky as Ross 128.
The Arecibo Observatory. Photo: H. Schweiker / WIYN and NOAO / AURA / NSF
JUST DUST
The wild flickerings of star KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s star, suggest that something occasionally passes in front of it and blocks out as much as 20 percent of its light. The flickerings have no clear pattern, and whatever is blocking the star’s light probably isn’t a celestial body like a planet. Some have suggested alien megastructures or some sort of extraterrestrial solar panel might be passing in front of the star instead.
But in January 2018, a team of astronomers reported that something much more ordinary is probably to blame for the star’s unusual behavior: a bunch of dust could be surrounding the star and filtering its light. “Weird stars that have dust coming from somewhere isn’t as much of a headline grabber,” Jason Wright, an astronomer at Penn State University and one of the study’s authors, told The Verge’s Loren Grush at the time. But there’s still some mystery left: we don’t know where exactly the dust is coming from.
An artist’s rendering of KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s star. Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt (IPAC)
THE GREAT PYRAMID’S GIANT VOID
In November 2017, scientists reported the discovery of a vast empty cavity inside the Great Pyramid at Giza. Using a kind of souped-up X-ray, an international team of researchers tracked subatomic particles called muons that plummet to Earth at nearly the speed of light. Since muons can pass through the air more easily than they can travel through dense stone, the researchers were able to discover previously unknown cracks and cavities — like the 100-foot-long cavern they called the “Big Void.”
The researchers still don’t know the precise shape of the cavity or why it’s there, but study co-author Mehdi Tayoubi said in a press briefing that they suspect that this cavity was built on purpose (by humans). Because, friends: it’s never aliens.
The UFOs and helicopter were seen when 12 people were rescued from a cargo ship, named the Luno, after it hit a seawall in Anglet, breaking into two pieces.
The ship was carrying fertilizer when its engine failed in the choppy Atlantic Ocean.
The UFOs flew in formation close to the chopper as if keeping watch on the rescue operation.
Jason Gleave, 46, who has studiedthe film of the UFOs, believes the objects are not drones or seagulls.
The former Royal Air Force member said: “Upon analyzing the footage, the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close.”
“Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions.”
“Upon closer analysis of the video frames, the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other.”
Nick Pope, who ran the UK Ministry of Defense’s “UFO desk” for three years, backed Gleave’s research.
He said: “Jason has been involved in researching and investigating UFOs and other mysteries (like many experts in this field, he uses the phrase ‘high strangeness events’ to describe a lot of this) for many years, but his particular area of expertise is imagery analysis.
“Jason has skill and experience in carefully examining photos and videos, sorting out the fact from the fiction.”
A retired Ministry of Defence (MoD) official and WW2 RAF navigator has spoken about the time he was left puzzled by an array lights coming from what he claims was a UFO hovering over Borehamwood.
The witness, whose name cannot be disclosed, was visiting friends in Cowley Hill at around 9pm on Friday May 24, 1985, when a triangular set of lights appeared overhead.
His report to the MoD, now declassified and stored in the National Archives, recounts what he saw in great detail – and he could offer no explanation despite decades spent professionally tracking the night sky.
How would you react to seeing a UFO?(Image: dennisvdw / Getty Images)
The observer, who had also been a member of the British Astronomical Association and regularly scanned the stars by telescope, said: “I rather doubt that I am easily deceived by aerial phenomena.
“My distinct impression is that I perceived an event for which no ready explanation is possible in wholly conventional terms.
“Astronomical phenomena are, I think, ruled out by the extensive cloud cover as well as by the very regular, triangular formation of the three lights seen.
“And aircraft lights seem a very unlikely explanation.”
UFO sightings in Herts
The mid-80s seemed a busy time for UFO sightings over the county. The following three sightings were reported in the eastern side of Hertfordshire:
1) A Hertford resident reported watching a bright, white light hovering over the town for two hours.
The witness reported a clear sky disturbed by a UFO, which loitered over the town centre, occasionally moving north.
2) On May 4, 1986, a telecom worker in Hoddesdon reported a white and orange ball with a tail flying over Dobbs Weir.
3) A husband and wife reported seeing a small and silvery object with a red top and bright yellow bottom mostly hovering still but also darting back and forth at high speed in Hitchin.
The objected was watched for at least 45 minutes and could still be seen at the time of their report in May 1985.
From his friend’s garden, he reported seeing a “triangular array of lights” in the direction of Elstree shining in white and yellow with an elevation of 30 to 40 degrees, heading south-west.
He said he heard no sound and saw no movement from the UFO, which lingered still below cloud cover for around two or three minutes.
His report described an equilateral triangle with three lights but could not confirm if power lines were near the UFO, adding the distance “must remain a matter of speculation”.
A statement on the MoD’s report notes the observer was “very keen” to make the report but “only did so after much consideration”.
According to the department’s report, he was grateful for the chance to “unburden” himself.
The witness served in the MoD from 1949 until 1977 and contributed to the war effort at the RAF from 1941 to 1946.
Hertfordshire police have received ten calls alleging UFO sightings in the county over 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Is there anyone else out there? It's a question plenty of people have asked, but no one has been able to answer—yet. But scientists think that may change, and sooner rather than later.
One of those scientists is Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute research center in California. Tarter has spent her career working on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and during a speech she presented in Florida last week, she hinted at a timeline for the next big discovery.
"I think that in this century we are going to be finding life beyond Earth," Tarter said during the talk, according to Florida Today. "We’re really working on an ancient human question. And that’s very, very rewarding. We might, within the 21st century, have the answer to whether there is life beyond Earth. And we’ve been asking that question for a very, very long time."
Tarter was speaking at a conference about cross-cultural management, and she wanted to give the attendees a greater context for solving the big problems that face us. She suggested that searching for alien life could be a sort of practice project—one that is less divisive but requires the same big-picture thinking as challenges like food shortages and climate change.
"[The search for extraterrestrial intelligence] as an endeavor may, in fact, need to be multi-, multi-generational before we figure out the right thing to look for," she told Newsweek. "This cosmic perspective is really something that we all need to adopt."
For Tarter, the 2100 date reflects a prediction made in a 2004 scientific paper that science of this century would be dominated by biology, just as the one prior was dominated by physics. "I think we see that already playing out in spades," she said—and she says taking that beyond Earth itself is only natural.
An artist's portrayal of the Kepler Space Telescope, a major development in the hunt for extraterrestrial life, spotting exoplanets.
NASA/JPL
But there's a big if: Tarter says the biggest challenge is securing the funding needed to see a field through multiple scientific generations. That's been particularly hard for scientists looking for technological signals, rather than focusing on simpler, single-celled life. She thinks success will also depend on adopting new technologies that could revolutionize how scientists search, like using neural networks to process data in new ways.
"Instead of us telling the computers what artifacts and signal types to look for, the machines will be smart enough and fast enough to tell us what's in the data that isn't noise," Tarter said. "It's a big ocean and we're just sticking our toe into it, but it's clearly the way to go."
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An Edmonds Kind of UFO? Local attorney heads up group investigating sightings
An Edmonds Kind of UFO? Local attorney heads up group investigating sightings
Michael Hall of Edmonds shows off the photos he took in January 2012 of a UFO over his home in Edmonds.
Michael Hall grew up in the community, opened his law practice here in 1988 and served a stint on the Edmonds City Council. His mom, Laura Hall, served as Edmonds mayor between 1992 and 1995. Semi-retired now, Hall still practices law, still in Edmonds. But today other interests are taking center stage. And these extend beyond the borders of Edmonds, and beyond even the known universe.
Hall heads up the UFOiTeam (or on Facebook here), a group he describes as “paranormal field investigators who follow up on UFO sighting reports.”
“I’ve always been interested in the paranormal,” he explains. “And the recent uptick in reports of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and the fact that the U.S. government is finally officially ‘disclosing’ their existence is giving these sightings a new legitimacy.” (UAP, by the way, is fast replacing UFO as the preferred term to describe these types of sightings.)
Hall is referring to a December 2017 front-page expose in the New York Timesdocumenting the long-running efforts of the Defense Department’s multi-million dollar program to study, investigate and document UFO sightings and reports.
According to Hall, this knowledge has been there for decades, but has been kept under wraps and only recently is coming to the fore.
“Most folks have heard about the 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico, that reportedly found parts of downed alien craft and even bodies of alien life forms” Hall explained. “But what many don’t know is that earlier that same year there were two sightings right here in Washington state, one on Maury Island involving six donut-shaped craft, and the other over Mount Rainier where nine crescent-shaped craft were seen flying in formation.”
It got personal for Hall on a clear chilly January evening in 2012.
“It was about 9:30 p.m. and I was coming home from the monthly parent-teacher meeting at Maplewood School,” he recalls. “As I was walking into my house I couldn’t help noticing the bright, clear moon. I took out my iPhone and snapped a few photos of it. The next day I looked closely at the photos on the big computer screen, and saw a strange red dot in the corner by the moon.”
Using several photo-enhancing apps, Hall zeroed in on the dot and what emerged was nothing short of amazing.
One of the enhanced images taken on January 10, 2012 by Michael Hall showing a cone-shaped UFO in the skies over Edmonds.
“I saw a cone-like shape just below the moon that just didn’t seem to belong there,” he said. “Now I don’t like loose ends. As a naturally curious individual, I found myself driven to get to the bottom of this.”
And the deeper he got, the stranger things became.
All iPhones keep a photo stream folder, where photos are stored in sequence based on the time they were taken. Examining the photo stream folder in his phone, Hall was amazed to discover that his moon photos were out of sequence. Specifically, according the file metadata, they were taken not at 9:30 p.m. when he actually took them, but 17 hours earlier, shortly after 3 a.m. that morning, when the moon was in an entirely different position in the sky.
Following the trail, he sent the photos to Bruce Maccabee of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), for further analysis. MUFON has access to sophisticated analytic tools that can determine a wide array of information from an image, including the exact coordinates, altitude and direction.
The results only deepened the mystery.
According to Hall, Maccabee found that the photo appears to have been taken from inside a vehicle that was hovering approximately 40 feet above his backyard, showing the image of a second vehicle as seen through a window of the first.
So how did these images get on Hall’s iPhone?
“I can’t explain that,” he confesses. “As far as I know I was asleep at the time. But the images are unequivocally there, and metadata doesn’t lie. Right now the only explanations that fit involve some sort of intercession by others employing knowledge and techniques beyond our current understanding. And it’s a good bet that these others are not of this world.”
With increasing reports of similar incidents coming in from around the globe, and the disclosure by the U.S. government of the existence of these phenomena, “the whole question of whether these exist is fast becoming moot,” says Hall.
“Think of the implications,” he continued. “We could gain access to superior technologies that could solve our terrestrial problems of energy supply, clean air and water, aging, cures for diseases and more. Things that could benefit our everyday lives, cure famine or even cure Aunt Betty of cancer.”
Hall invites anyone interested in learning more or becoming part of this adventure to drop in at any weekly UFOiTeam meeting (meetings are held Wednesday evenings 6-8 p.m. at the Lynnwood Denny’s, 4109 196th St. S.W.), visit the UFOiTeam website or Facebook page or contact him directly by phone at 425-245-4661 or email at michaelhall3200@gmail.com.
UFO sightings should be reported to the National UFO Reporting Center, 206-722-3000. Visitors to their website can also view data on recent sightings and reports.
Asteroid-bound spacecraft finds signs of life—on Earth
A camera onboard the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured this image of the Pacific Ocean, Baja California in Mexico, and parts of the southwestern United States. The dark lines are missing data caused by short exposure times.
NASA/GODDARD/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Asteroid-bound spacecraft finds signs of life—on Earth
Nearly 30 years ago, the Galileo spacecraft flew past Earth on its journey to Jupiter, prompting astronomer Carl Sagan to develop a novel experiment: to look for signs of life on Earth from space. The spacecraft found high levels of methane and oxygen, suggestions that photosynthesis was occurring on Earth’s surface. Now, astronomers have repeated the experiment, this time with an asteroid-bound spacecraft that swung around Earth in late 2017. It also found Earth to be teeming with life, but with an unsettling corollary: Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and methane were far higher than they were during the Galileo flyby.
“It’s a challenging intellectual enterprise,” says Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and principal investigator of NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. “I really tried to channel Carl Sagan.”
The main goal of OSIRIS-REx is to return samples from Bennu, an asteroid as big as the Empire State Building. But during the Earth flyby—which brought the spacecraft 22 times closer to our planet than the moon—scientists pointed its instruments toward home.
The team spotted hurricanes Maria and Jose, and its spectrographs—used to detect gases based on the absorption of specific wavelengths of light passing through the atmosphere—recorded levels of methane, oxygen, and ozone far higher than values expected from a lifeless world. That implies that biological processes were creating these compounds, the team reported last week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The researchers also found that visible light was being absorbed by Earth’s landmasses, a clear sign of photosynthesis.
And in an update to Galileo’s findings, OSIRIS-REx recorded methane and carbon dioxide values that were 12% and 14% higher, respectively, than they were in 1990. That’s not surprising, Lauretta says. Twenty-seven years ago, the world contained 2 billion fewer people and far fewer sources of pollution.
These OSIRIS-REx observations are an important test of what a habitable, life-filled planet looks like from afar, says Sarah Stewart Johnson, a planetary scientist at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the project. “These images and spectra underscore the dazzling possibilities for exoplanets.” But as scientists begin to comb through observations from distant worlds for signs of life, they’ll want to remember some sage advice from the Galileo team: Any measurements that suggest the existence of life must always be carefully scrutinized for other possible explanations. As they wrote, “Life is the hypothesis of last resort.”
APEen ruimteveer met aan boord de Tiangong-1 werd in 2011 gelanceerd. Sinds 2013 is het ruimtestation oncontroleerbaar.
WETENSCHAPDe verwachte terugval op Aarde van het eerste Chinese ruimtestation, de Tiangong-1, zal tussen 31 maart en 4 april plaatsvinden. Dat heeft het officiële Chinese persbureau Xhinhua op gezag van het Chinese Engineeringbureau voor Bemande Ruimtevaart gemeld.
Op 29 september 2011 lanceerde Peking zijn eerste ruimtestation, de Tiangong-1 (‘Hemels Paleis’). Ondertussen heeft China de controle over het meer dan acht ton wegende ruimteschip, dat sinds 2013 niet meer operationeel was, verloren.Het ding komt dus sowieso naar beneden. Dat zal tussen 31 maart en 4 april gebeuren. Naar verwachting zal het ruimteschip volledig opbranden in de atmosfeer.Op 25 maart draaide de Tiangong-1 een baan met een gemiddelde hoogte van 216,2 km. Het embryonale ruimtestation was toen nog intact.
Het Europese Ruimtevaartbureau ESA voorziet de terugval tussen 30 maart en 2 april, al is dit volgens zijn Bureau voor Ruimteschroot “zeer variabel”. De terugkeer zal plaatsvinden tussen 43 graden noorder- en 43 graden zuiderbreedte. ESA waarschuwt dat het nooit het exacte tijdstip en exacte plaats zal kunnen inschatten.
Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical CenterCreative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode)
MEDISCHWetenschappers hebben een ophefmakende ontdekking gedaan in het menselijk lichaam: een soort snelweg voor vloeistof die onder de huid en langs veel organen loopt. In een artikel in Scientific Reports noemen ze dat netwerk van vochthoudende compartimentjes samen voor het eerst een “nieuw orgaan”. Ze hopen dat de ontdekking helpt begrijpen hoe kanker zich door ons lichaam verspreidt.
De lagen van het ‘interstitium’, zoals het netwerk wordt genoemd, werden lang beschouwd als dicht bindweefsel, maar nu blijken het minuscule reeksen vochthoudende kanaaltjes. Die zitten onder de huid, maar ook langs darmen, longen, bloedvaten en spieren. Samen vormen ze een netwerk dat ondersteund wordt door een raamwerk van sterke, flexibele eiwitten. De onderzoekers vermoeden dat de compartimentjes kunnen dienstdoen als schokbrekers die lichaamsweefsel beschermen tegen schade, en dat ze samen ongeveer een vijfde van het lichaamsvocht bevatten.
Levend weefsel
Hoe is het in godsnaam mogelijk dat dit nu pas wordt ontdekt? Dokters David Carr-Locke en Petros Benias van het Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center in New York stootten erop tijdens een kijkonderzoek van het galkanaal van een patiënt, waar ze aanwijzingen zochten van kanker. De camera gaf lichaamsweefsel vergroot weer, waardoor de artsen op patronen stootten die ze nog niet eerder hadden gezien. Zij namen vervolgens contact op met patholoog Neil Theise van de New York University.
thinkstockDe galblaas zit naast de lever.
Maar het ging dus om een levende patiënt, terwijl traditioneel onderzoek dood lichaamsweefsel bestudeert waaruit vloeistoffen verwijderd zijn. De kanaaltjes werden dus doorgaans aanzien als een simpele laag bindweefsel, maar Theise ontwikkelde een techniek om het verwijderde weefsel in leven te houden. Dat is meteen ook zijn grote verdienste, zegt professor Patrick Pauwels, hoofd van de dienst Pathologische Anatomie van het UZ Antwerpen. Aan de VRT-nieuwsredactie legt hij uit dat de vloeistofstromen wel degelijk al langer gekend waren, maar dat het nu de eerste keer is dat ze in levend weefsel in detail bestudeerd werden mét het circulerende vocht erin.
Kanker
Theises team analyseerde nog stukjes galkanaal van twaalf andere patiënten en stelden vast dat de laag uitmondt in het lymfevatenstelsel, het netwerk van organen, vaten en weefsel waarin lymfe en lymfocyten zitten en getransporteerd worden. Dat is betrokken bij het afweersysteem van ons lichaam.
De onderzoekers vonden aanwijzingen dat kankercellen van tumoren via het interstitium in het lymfesysteem kunnen belanden. Het netwerk zou zo een rol kunnen spelen bij de verspreiding van kanker doorheen het lichaam, waardoor wetenschappers mogelijk nieuwe testen voor kanker zouden kunnen ontwikkelen.
Pilots on two separate aircraft reported an unidentified flying object high over southern Arizona last month.
One of them, a commercial pilot flying a passenger jet for American Airlines, said the object was above 40,000 feet and “had a big reflection.”
The Feb. 24th incident began when the pilot of a Learjet reported an object to Albuquerque Center air traffic control while flying over the desert in southeastern Arizona.
“I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t an airplane but it was, the path was going in the opposite direction,” the pilot said.
Air traffic controllers asked the pilot of a nearby American Airlines passenger jet traveling from San Francisco to Dallas to let them know if anything passes over the aircraft.
“If anything passes over us?” the pilot asked, somewhat incredulously.
A few minutes later, he saw it ― whatever “it” was.
“Something just passed over us, like a, don’t know what it was, but it was at least two, three thousand feet above us,” he said. “Yeah it passed right over the top of us.”
The American Airlines pilot said he couldn’t make out what the object was but it “had a big reflection” and was going in the opposite direction.
Two months later, it’s still not clear what was up there.
“We don’t have any comment beyond what you hear,” FAA spokesperson Lynn Lunsford told KOB, the NBC station in Albuquerque. “Other than the brief conversation between two aircraft, the controller was unable to verify that any other aircraft was in the area.”
The reported altitude would put the UFO well above the range of consumer drones. Yet the vague nature of the sightings doesn’t completely rule out balloons or experimental aircraft.
The sightings occurred near the Davis–Monthan Air Force Base, and about 100 miles from Luke Air Force Base. Several other bases are within 500 miles. However, Lunsford implied that air traffic controllers would likely know if there was military aircraft in the air.
“We have a close working relationship with a number of other agencies and safely handle military aircraft and civilian aircraft of all types in that area every day, including high-altitude weather balloons,” Lunsford was quoted as saying.
Er vloog iets over ons heen: piloten spotten ‘sterk reflecterende’ UFO op grote hoogte. Wat hebben ze gezien?
Er vloog iets over ons heen: piloten spotten ‘sterk reflecterende’ UFO op grote hoogte. Wat hebben ze gezien?
Piloten van twee verschillende vliegtuigen hebben afgelopen maand melding gemaakt van een UFO in de lucht boven Arizona.
Eén van de piloten, die een toestel van American Airlines vloog, zei dat het object zich op een hoogte van zo’n 12 kilometer bevond en ‘sterk reflecteerde’.
De piloot van een Learjet meldde het object bij de luchtverkeersleiding. “Ik weet niet wat het is geweest,” zei hij. “Het was in ieder geval geen vliegtuig.”
Tegengestelde richting
Luchtverkeersleiders vroegen de piloot van het American Airlines-vliegtuig, die in de buurt was, of hij het object ook kon zien.
Enkele minuten later zag hij het object verschijnen. “Er vloog iets over ons heen,” zei hij. “Ik weet niet wat het was, maar het vloog recht over ons heen.”
De American Airlines-piloot zei dat hij niet goed kon zien hoe het eruitzag. Wel zag hij dat het object sterk reflecterend was en in de tegengestelde richting vloog.
Niet duidelijk
“Was het een Google-ballon?” vroeg een stem. “Dat betwijfel ik,” antwoordde de piloot. “UFO,” merkte iemand op.
Het is nog steeds niet duidelijk wat de piloten hebben gezien. De Amerikaanse luchtvaartautoriteit FAA liet weten dat de luchtverkeersleiding verder geen andere vliegtuigen in het gebied kon zien.
Het gesprek tussen de piloot en de luchtverkeersleiding is hieronder te beluisteren:
Moment UFOs spotted speeding past helicopter during rescue operation
Moment UFOs spotted speeding past helicopter during rescue operation
IS it a bird? Is it a drone? Or something else entirely? Spooky footage captured the moment two UFOs appeared to soar past a rescue helicopter.
SPOOKY footage has captured two UFOs speeding past a helicopter, which was hovering over a crash site where survivors were being rescued.
The silver disc-shaped objects were captured flying behind the military chopper by a local news crew off the southwestern coast of France.
The startling footage from February 2014 has only just come to light after researcher Jason Gleave featured it in his new book UFO PHOTO, published by Flying Disk Press.
A researcher used the latest computer technology to analyse the footage.
Source:Supplied
Jason Gleave, 46, who has studied the film using the latest computer technology, believes the objects are not drones or seagulls.
The former member of the RAF said: “Upon analysing the footage the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close.
“Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions.
“Upon closer analysis of the video frames the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other.”
The UFOs pictured zooming past a helicopter in France.
Source:Supplied
Nick Pope, who ran the Ministry of Defence’s ‘UFO desk’ for three years, backed Gleave’s research.
He said: “Jason has been involved in researching and investigating UFOs and other mysteries (like many experts in this field, he uses the phrase ‘high strangeness events’ to describe a lot of this) for many years, but his particular area of expertise is imagery analysis.
“Jason has skill and experience in carefully examining photos and videos, sorting out the fact from the fiction.”
The story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished with permission.
Twee UFO’s schieten langs helikopter tijdens reddingsoperatie. Hoe is dit te verklaren?
Twee UFO’s schieten langs helikopter tijdens reddingsoperatie. Hoe is dit te verklaren?
Er zijn beelden opgedoken van twee UFO’s die langs een reddingshelikopter schieten. De helikopter bevond zich op dat moment in de buurt van een vrachtschip dat was vastgelopen voor de Franse kust, schrijft nieuwssite News.com.au.
De zilverkleurige objecten, die achter de helikopter langs vlogen, zijn vastgelegd door een cameraploeg.
De beelden zijn in 2014 gemaakt en te zien in een nieuw boek van Jason Gleaves getiteld UFO Photo.
Onwaarschijnlijk
De 46-jarige Gleaves, die de beelden heeft bestudeerd met behulp van computertechnologie, heeft geconcludeerd dat het geen drones of zeemeeuwen zijn.
“De twee objecten schieten gevaarlijk dicht langs de helikopter,” zei Gleaves, die voor de Britse luchtmacht RAF heeft gewerkt.
Het is onwaarschijnlijk dat het drones zijn, aangezien drones normaal gesproken niet zo gevaarlijk dicht in de buurt van een reddingshelikopter komen, legde hij uit.
Strakke formatie
De twee objecten blijven heel dicht bij elkaar en lijken in een soort strakke formatie te vliegen.
“Jason doet al vele jaren onderzoek naar UFO’s en andere mysteries en is vooral gespecialiseerd in het analyseren van beelden,” zei Nick Pope, die jarenlang UFO-waarnemingen bijhield voor het Britse ministerie van Defensie.
“Jason beschikt over de kennis en expertise om foto’s en video’s zorgvuldig te bestuderen en feiten van fictie te onderscheiden,” voegde hij toe.
Looking up at the clouds, imagining shapes of fantastic creatures and scenes has been a pastime of humans since time immemorial. Now a video showing a cloud shaped in a perfect square, which is arguably the most boring shape of all, has been making the rounds on social media, leading some to link the bizarre weather phenomenon to supposed government attempts at geoengineering and weather control through the use of HAARP (High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program), the often paranoia-inducing radio installation in Alaska.
The video, claimed to be filmed in Tuscon, Arizona and posted March 23, 2018, shows a large, thick cloud covering the sky on an otherwise clear day. As the camera moves to show more of the cloud it reveals perfect 90 degree angles and well defined edges against the backdrop of blue sky. It’s a noteworthy cloud, and it’s understandable that it would spark curiosity.
Of course, this square cloud video could be a hoax. That’s a reality in the age of easily accessible video effects tools and platforms to disseminate videos. This isn’t the first time square-shaped and other strange clouds have been seen, however, and it never fails to excite curiosity and speculation. After all, clouds aren’t known for their conformity to rigid geometry, and well defined angles and squares are rarely seen in nature.
See? Not a square in sight.
Why, though, are people jumping to the immediate conclusion that this strange weather phenomenon is due to HAARP and not something else? Is it merely because of HAARP’s notoriety and the fact that its name sounds like a comic book super-weapon, or are there specifics of the HAARP research program that would account for these mysterious clouds?
The video in question is on YouTube. Warning: spooky music.
Mysterious 'Square' Cloud Spotted in the Sky
Artist’s rendition of normal clouds.
HAARP is a research facility consisting of an array of high frequency transmitters in Gakona, Alaska. The facility was built in 1993 with the express purpose (as the HAARP FAQ explains) of artificially inducing rare weather phenomena, to better study otherwise obscure and unpredictable atmospheric events.
HAARP uses high-frequency radio transmissions to heat targeted areas of the ionosphere to artificially replicate disturbances that are found in nature. HAARP’s website lists a select few of the phenomena that can be replicated:
With a facility like HAARP, it is possible to perform an experiment at will to create plasma structures and irregularities, use the ionosphere like an antenna to excite low frequency waves, create weak luminous aurora-like glows and a variety of other experiments.
OK, so it’s definitely a weird facility. It’s too bad the “variety of other experiments” are not elaborated on, though it probably wouldn’t reveal much. HAARP denies that they’re hiding a weather control machine up in the frozen north, and they deny that the installation could be at all used to control the weather:
Radio waves in the frequency ranges that HAARP transmits are not absorbed in either the troposphere or the stratosphere—the two levels of the atmosphere that produce Earth’s weather. Since there is no interaction, there is no way to control the weather.
The HAARP system is basically a large radio transmitter. Radio waves interact with electrical charges and currents, and do not significantly interact with the troposphere.
HAARP antenna array. You can see where the public relations problems might come from.
That doesn’t stop the speculation though. Government research into weather manipulation is a real thing, according to the CIA, and if HAARP had nothing to do with these strange clouds then they’re probably kicking themselves for putting this in their FAQ:
Earlier this month, Voxfeatured a video essay on its website examining “Why we imagine aliens the way we do.” Vox tells us:
“We often imagine extraterrestrials to look a certain way because we’ve encountered them in books, films, or TV shows, which means that when we’re thinking about aliens, we’re usually thinking about the product of someone else’s imagination.”
Vox is suggesting that we conceptualize aliens as we do almost entirely because of science fiction, in the form of books, movies, TV shows, etc. As I’ve shown in my own work, it’s not quite as simple as that. Vox’s video essay is interesting, but what it neglects to consider is the tremendous influence of the UFO subculture—a subculture sprung from what would appear to be an ontologically real phenomenon.
It is a common misconception that Hollywood pulls its alien imaginings out of thin air; in reality, the movie industry has been drawing creative inspiration from UFOlogy—from real-world reports of otherworldly encounters—for decades. Unidentified Flying Objects are “real,” which is to say they exist independently of cinema, and of pop-culture more broadly. UFOs have been investigated by governments around the world for almost seven decades. What the phenomenon represents is open for debate, but the point is that, even in a world without movies, people would continue to report UFOs. People were reporting UFOs comfortably before Hollywood got in on the act.
Indeed, the first reports of flying saucers in the modern UFO era pre-date Hollywood’s first feature film about UFOs by three years. It was in 1947 that pilot Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting gave rise to the “flying saucer” term, but it wasn’t until 1950 that Hollywood produced The Flying Saucer, a cheap attempt to cash-in on the UFO hysteria then sweeping America—a hysteria incited not by cinema, but by numerous reports nationwide of disc-shaped objects intruding upon America’s airspace.
Ever since 1950, the movie industry has been grabbing hold of UFOlogical concepts and popularizing them through the science-fiction genre: “Men in Black,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Fourth Kind,” “Area 51.” Hollywood didn’t create these terms, they were all part of the common language of UFOlogy decades before Hollywood lifted them. The same is true of the now-iconic image of the “Gray” alien—a form that has its roots in pre-existing UFO literature and which has since has found its way into some of the most popular science-fiction movies and TV shows of all time.
The eponymous alien from the 2011 movie, ‘Paul,’ which drew heavily from UFO literature and debate.
A recurrent image in the Vox video is that of the Gray alien, but Vox makes no allusions to its UFOlogical origins; the implication is that Hollywood dreamed it up. In fact, descriptions of what we now call Grays were surfacing in real-world abduction accounts reported to Budd Hopkins and other researchers in the 1970s, and alleged abductee Travis Waltonhad described such entities as early as 1975. It wasn’t until two years later, in 1977, that Hollywood produced its first fully crystalized cinematic image of the Grays in Spielberg’s proudly UFOlogical Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Grays in the movie were based directly on first-hand testimonies gathered by Spielberg’s production designer, Joe Alves.
I interviewed Alves in 2014. He told me: “I talked to a lot of legitimate people… who described to me very simplistic creatures with large eyes and small mouths, no nose.” Based on what he heard during his research for Close Encounters, Alves began conceptualizing the alien beings. “The descriptions I heard were of these big-eyed things with small mouths and no nose, long fingers, that kind of thing.”
Close Encounters was tremendously successful, but it wasn’t until the late-1980s that the big black eyes of the Gray began to penetrate the popular consciousness. Key to this was Whitley Strieber’s 1987 nonfiction Communion, based on his own claimed experiences with alien beings. Communion was adapted for Hollywood in 1989; its poster featured a full-face image of a Gray, staring hypnotically into the eyes of millions of creeped-out cinemagoers worldwide. Then followed Intruders(1992), a miniseries based directly on real-world descriptions of Grays as documented in abduction literature. More Grays would then appear in The X-Files (1993-), Babylon 5 (1994-1998), Dark Skies (1996-1997), and others. By the late-1990s, the image of the Gray had supplanted almost all other pre-existing cultural imaginings of what an alien might look like.
In Hollywood’s UFO movies, broadly speaking, art imitates life. If the opposite were true, then following the release of James Cameron’s Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time, we might reasonably have expected thousands of people to have begun reporting ten-foot-tall blue aliens. This did not happen; just as Hollywood’s forceful projection of the “little green men” meme has failed to result in mass sightings of little green men (although reports of such entities do lightly pepper the UFO literature).
When it comes to UFOs and aliens, Hollywood produces depictions, albeit not entirely faithful ones, of what people actually report. This is not to say that what’s reported is necessarily true or accurate, but merely that Hollywood sees dramatic potential in these reports. The resulting cinematic imagery then plants itself into our pop-cultural landscape, influencing our perceptions and expectations of alien life and contact.
So, we should keep in mind that a significant factor in why we imagine aliens as we do is that people across the decades claim to have encountered them in real life; these individuals have then reported their alien encounters to interested parties, and the details of these cases have been gradually appropriated by Hollywood for entertainment purposes, devaluing the original reports while transforming fact-based ufological detail into sci-fi iconography. So, while it’s certainly fair to say that Hollywood is the force primarily responsible for shaping popular expectations of alien life and visitation, let us not forget the immense debt Hollywood owes to UFOlogy.
27-03-2018 om 21:02
geschreven door peter
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Mysterious RED MIST GLOW at the International Space Station
Mysterious RED MIST GLOW at the International Space Station
A really strange event happened yesterday when a massive red mist glow appeared in Space. The International Space Station was also completely surrounded by the red mist glow.
A few days earlier a bizarre phenomenon has occurred in four countries, where strange orange snow has fallen in Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Romania, turning ski resorts into ‘apocalyptic’ looking scenes.
News reports say that the orange snow was likely the result of winds blowing sand from the Sahara desert but is it really just sand blowing up from the Sahara desert that is causing the orange snow?
Streetcap1 who recorded the red mist glow: “Sahara sand can travel into space causing the red mist glow? What could be the real source of this strange space phenomenon?”
In 1950 Velikovsky published the ground breaking book 'Worlds in Collision' and in it Velikovsky argued that a huge comet-planet passed by, and interacted, with earth in historical times.
Velikosysky wrote about Nibiru.
Since its arrival in the inner solar system in 2003, it is said that planet Earth at the certain moment will encounter the tail of Nibiru and one of the first visible signs of this encounter is the reddening of the earth's surface by a fine dust of rusty pigment as well as massive clouds of charged, red, iron-oxide dust.
This red dust is blown around, creating red sandstorms and is the cause of blood-red and strange sunsets and red skies (orange/red glows) - (even at night), and colored clouds that spread from horizon to horizon, reports earthchangeshotline.
When viewed from Earth, Nibiru appears a blood red color because of this accompanying red dust cloud, which is outside its atmosphere.
Whether the 'hypothetical' celestial body Nibiru is really the cause of the orange snow and the strange red mist glow in space is always the question, but at least it is a very strange phenomenon.
Apparent Alien Ships Seemingly Make Ski Lift Out Of Control, Leaving Two People Severely Injured
Apparent Alien Ships Seemingly Make Ski Lift Out Of Control, Leaving Two People Severely Injured
A pair of UFOs appeared to have visited the Gudauri ski resort in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia.
A pair of lights was captured by a live feed camera looking up a slope. They suddenly made an appearance out of nowhere over the ski resort. The live feed also shows several people pointing to the strange bright aerial objects.
The unidentified objects appear so strange that it can be assumed it was not a natural sky phenomenon. Adding to the mystery is that the ski lift went out of control the moment the bright objects appeared.
The ski lift started to run backwards without apparent reasons at high speed. Skiers had to jump to safety, but many others failed to get off safely, felling out of the chairlift and flying through the air.
Ten people suffered injuries after the ski lift went out of control and two of them have been seriously injured, including a pregnant woman.
Many believe that the malfunction has been caused by the UFO-like bright lights over the ski area.
Three videos of the incident were posted online.
The first one shows the moment the UFOs appear over the ski resort. The second and third videos show the terrifying moments the ski lift goes out of control and people flying through the air.
Another Footage Shows An Encounter Between U.S. Military and A UFO
Another Footage Shows An Encounter Between U.S. Military and A UFO
A mysterious object moving over the Atlantic Ocean was caught on video. The newly released footage apparently shows a U.S. Navy encounter with a UFO.
An infrared camera aboard an F/A-18 fighter jet moving at 25,000 feet reportedly captured the 35-second clip in 2015.
An alleged pilot appears surprised with what they are encountering after the sensor locks-on to the fast moving UFO.
The weapons system operator also saw the same thing.
To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences released the video online. It is claimed to be a private scientific research company. The organization did not mention how the footage was obtained, but it was reportedly available through a Freedom of Information request to the DoD.
Two similar videos were released to the public in December 2017 when Pentagon acknowledged the $22 million program from 2008 to 2012 that investigated UFOs.
The pair of videos allegedly showed an encounter between U.S. Navy fighter jets and a white, oval-shaped flying object in 2004 off the coast of San Diego. One of the pilots in the incident was retired Commander David Fravor, who told CNN that he observed what looked like a 40-foot-long Tic Tac maneuvering and changing direction rapidly.
In October 2017, radar caught a strange flying object. Pilots flying along a commercial route in broad daylight over Oregon also saw the bizarre aerial thing. Fighter jets were dispatched to see what was going on, but they found nothing.
Early last February, The War Zone published an exclusive story detailing what amounts to a "missing link" in Lockheed's flying-wing unmanned aircraft lineage, one that bridges the gap between the Skunk Works' abortive RQ-3 Darkstar from the 1990s and the RQ-170 Sentinel that appeared a decade later in Afghanistan. You can read all about what we know and what we don't about this previously highly classified experimental aircraft and why its existence is so important in our feature on the X-44A linked here. And now we are excited to announce that we have detailed images of the aircraft we described in our report to share with our readers.
The X-44A is being unveiled to the public there as part of the Skunk Works' 75th anniversary. Considering it is the biggest public aerospace event in the same community where the famed 'bleeding-edge' aerospace engineering unit is based, it is a perfect setting to show off a previously unknown and seemingly very important Skunk Works test article.
Here are the shots:
MATT HARTMAN/SHOREALONEFILMS.COM
Our original analysis and report seem to be spot on, with the aircraft having roughly a 30 foot wingspan, about half that of its RQ-170 successor. The designation and even the use of the Indigo-Delta-Kilo (I Don't Know) cryptic badge are as we previously reported, as it the fact that it uses a small Williams jet engine (Williams badge on the fuselage). The wings also appear removable and/or foldable, and the belly fairing seems to be able to be changed out to accept various payloads and gear designs. And its resemblance to the P175 Polecat demonstrator and the RQ-170 is striking.
We are certain to hear more details about the clandestine life of this aircraft and how it got the seemingly contradictory title of X-44A soon as Lockheed is now showing it off to the public. But above all else, it allows us to fill in a blank that the author has long posited to have existed as part of the Lockheed's flying-wing, penetrating drone lineage.
We will keep you up to date as more info emerges about the X-44A and its exploits.
However, long before these multi-billionaires got into the space business, governments were into it big time. The U.S. and Russia have been launching satellites and spacecraft into space since the 1950s, and other countries have joined in the fun since then.
In 2011, China launched a 19,000-pound space station--Tiangong-1--atop a Long March 2F rocket, and into orbit around the Earth. A variety of missions were conducted over the next couple of years, and the space station was eventually put into sleep mode--where it was expected to remain for many years.
However, the space station's orbit gradually decayed, and in 2016, China lost control of Tiangong-1.
That's a problem, because 19,000 pounds of metal and other materials will soon be headed to the earth's surface -- and where it will land, no one knows. Actually, scientists are pretty sure where it won't land. According to Holger Krag of the European Space Agency (ESA):
"Owing to the geometry of the station's orbit, we can already exclude the possibility that any fragments will fall over any spot further north than 43ºN or further south than 43ºS."
Translated into English, this puts countries such as Spain, Turkey, India, Italy, and parts of the U.S. at greatest risk of being hit by debris from the fallen spacecraft (some pieces as heavy as a couple hundred pounds are expected to survive reentry into the earth's atmosphere).
Out-of-control Chinese space station carrying toxic chemicals could crash into Earth next WEEK http://dailym.ai/2FW3Q6Z
China's Tiangong-1 space station will crash into Earth around April 4
Predictions of Tiangong-1's most likely point of impact (pictured) come from Aerospace, a US research organisation based in El Segundo, California, that advises on space flight.
The good news is that although the risk of being hit by wayward Chinese space station debris is very real, the probability is actually quite small that any one person will become a victim--according to experts, about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot.
So, depending on where you live, next weekend might bring a sky show like few of us have ever seen as Tiangong-1 spectacularly crashes to Earth. Here's hoping it doesn't land in your town.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
This is interesting, I'm sure there's a rational explanation for this.
Nose is up 90 degrees, shifts, flattens plane 180 degrees. No trail of exhaust to follow movements from where it initially appeared in the clouds. Keep track of the right side of the craft - it rises completely up as one continuous object. It's one massive craft. Amazing
It’s not surprising that a new study linking extreme winter weather in the U.S. East with a warmer Arctic has drawn fire from global warming skeptics. Should you believe the study or the skeptics?
A new study – published March 13, 2018, in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications – again links warming Arctic temperatures to colder weather. Although this correlation is far-from-settled science, these particular researchers did find that severe winter weather in the eastern U.S. is two to four times more likely when the Arctic is abnormally warm than when the Arctic is abnormally cold. Likewise, according to this study, northern latitudes of Europe and Asia may have colder winters when the Arctic is warm. This research has drawn fire from global warming deniers and prompted contrarian viewpoints in some publications. How can we know who or what to believe?
Here’s what we can know, with some confidence. Measurements show that the Arctic has been abnormally warm, and sea ice in the Arctic has been low. Measurements have their uncertainties also, but many measurements – for example, sea ice measurements from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado – show these trends in the Arctic. It appears that the Arctic is not only warming, but warming at a rate two to three times faster than the observed rate of warming for the rest of the globe. This phenomenon is known among climate scientists as Arctic amplification.
So … what’s happening here? It seems counterintuitive that a warmer Arctic would cause colder winters.
Should we believe this new study?
View larger. | Geographic locations of cities analyzed in the new study. The authors said: “We chose a geographically diverse set of 12 cities to analyze Arctic variability and severe winter weather, though we chose more cities in the northeastern and mid-western U.S. where severe winter weather is more common than in other regions of the U.S.”
In deciding whether you believe it, it’s important to realize that measurements are in a different category in science from analysis. The March 13 study – authored by Judah Cohen of MIT, Karl Pfeiffer of Atmospheric & Environmental Research, Inc. and Jennifer Francis of Rutgers – used the tools of science to analyze existing data. These authors described their study as an:
… extensive, quantitative analysis of the link between Arctic variability and severe winter weather across the mid-latitudes. In this study we find a robust relationship between Arctic temperatures and severe winter weather in the United States. When the Arctic is warm, both cold temperatures and heavy snowfall are more frequent compared to when the Arctic is cold.
Jennifer Francis commented in a statement from Rutgers on March 13:
Basically, this confirms the story I’ve been telling for a couple of years now. Warm temperatures in the Arctic cause the jet stream to take these wild swings, and when it swings farther south, that causes cold air to reach farther south.
These researchers found that when Arctic warming occurred near Earth’s surface, the correlation with severe winter weather was weak. But when the warming over the Arctic extended high into the atmosphere, into the stratosphere, disruptions of the stratospheric polar vortex were likely.
View larger. | These authors assert in their study that: “As the Arctic warms, the continents become colder.”
Global warming skeptics pounced on this study. For example, Steven Milloy – who is, among other things, the publisher of the website JunkScience.com, a former columnist for Fox News and a co-creator and manager of the Free Enterprise Action Fund – posted the following tweet, which lifts language directly from Cohen et al.’s Nature paper:
He’s pointing to the part of Cohen, Pfeiffer and Francis’ own study where they themselves point out some of this study’s unknowns and challenges, and, by extension, some of the unknowns and challenges inherent in modern climate science. Do these acknowledged unknowns and challenges undercut this study – or almost all climate studies – as Milloy suggests?
Let’s look at the answer in a wider context. Does asking scientific questions in any field suggest that area of science is not worth pursuing?
Of course not.
If it did, science as a whole would have come to a dead standstill long ago, and our lives would be far less easy and comfortable than they are today. Think of electricity. Do you suppose Thomas Edison had questions, as he figured it out? Do you think he might have had challenges?
The fact is, scientists are supposed to question themselves and each other. They’re supposed to work through challenges. It’s what they’re trained to do. It’s how science gets done. It might be helpful here to mention that all science is a process, as all scientists and many non-scientists know. Scientists question, and try to answer their own questions or learn how other scientists have answered them, and this constant questioning-and-answering pushes their investigations of nature forward … or, I should say, our investigations of nature, since science is a cultural activity, paid for in large part by our tax dollars.
Do global warming skeptics like Steven Milloy understand that questioning is part of the process of science? I have no idea. It’s possible he doesn’t; he’s trained as a lawyer, not a scientist.
Should we believe that Arctic warming is correlated with colder winters as this study suggests? Belief or disbelief doesn’t enter into it, for scientists, and it shouldn’t for you either. The results are just out there, for you and me to read about, be informed about and think about, and for future scientific studies to either confirm or refute.
This study is one small clue in the investigation of climate change, which has already been going on for decades. Will this one little clue be swept away by better ones? Maybe. Time will tell.
Until then, claims that the study has been undercut because scientists are questioning themselves and each other … well, those claims just show some writers’ ignorance of – unawareness of, unconsciousness of, unfamiliarity with, inexperience with, lack of information about – the way science works.
It may be willful ignorance, or not.
See how Step #5 (Make a Conclusion) has an arrow leading back to Step #1 (Ask a Question)? Scientists are continually questioning because science isn’t a body of facts; it’s a way of investigating nature.
By the way, someone is bound to ask in the comments who supported the study by Cohen, Pfeiffer and Francis. That is a valid and excellent question. For virtually any published science study, you can find a section at the very bottom called Acknowledgements. These authors’ acknowledgements are as follows:
We are grateful to Barbara Mayes-Boustead and Steve Hallberg for generously sharing with us the AWSSI [Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index] data. J.C. is supported by the National Science Foundation grants AGS-1303647 and PLR-1504361. J.F. is supported by NASA grant NNX14AH896 and NSF/ARCSS grant 1304097.
In his criticism of the study, Steven Milloy didn’t have as established a mechanism for mentioning who currently funds him, but he’s well-known for having been a paid advocate for Philip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations. Read more about who funds Steven Milloy.
Wondering who funds EarthSky? Our small organization receives revenues from three sources: ads on this website, donations and sales in our store.
Bottom line: A warm Arctic means colder, snowier winters in the northeastern U.S., according to a new study. You don’t have to believe it; just think about it.
The Juno spacecraft has found that the giant planet Jupiter is full of big surprises; its interior composition and structure seem to be quite different, and its winds even more active, than originally thought. Now, giant cyclones at the planet’s poles have been seen in greater detail than ever before. They are not only stunning, but unique from atmospheric storms of any other planet in our solar system, even other gas and ice giants. Also, other new data from Juno builds on previous findings, including showing that the planet’s strong winds penetrate deep into the atmosphere and last longer than any similar ones on our planet.
The new findings are published (here and here) in the March 8, 2018, edition of the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
In a statement from NASA, Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, said:
These astonishing science results are yet another example of Jupiter’s curve balls, and a testimony to the value of exploring the unknown from a new perspective with next-generation instruments. Juno’s unique orbit and evolutionary high-precision radio science and infrared technologies enabled these paradigm-shifting discoveries.
Juno is only about one-third the way through its primary mission, and already we are seeing the beginnings of a new Jupiter.
Since astronomers first started using telescopes, it could be seen that Jupiter seemed to be an active world, with its well-known colorful atmospheric belts, and of course the Great Red Spot. Thanks to probes like Voyager, Galileo and now Juno, we can see these phenomena in much greater detail than ever before. The atmospheric belts are incredibly turbulent, with jet streams and storms far more powerful than any on Earth.
Jupiter’s atmospheric marvels are not limited to its equatorial regions, however; Juno has provided unprecedented views of the planet’s poles, where massive cyclones churn with unearthly ferocity. Infrared images created from data taken by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument look almost surreal, like cosmic artwork.
The clusters of cyclones around the poles look kind of like a space pizza – a dazzling, yet unearthly sight. Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, and lead author of oneof the new papers, said:
Prior to Juno we did not know what the weather was like near Jupiter’s poles. Now, we have been able to observe the polar weather up-close every two months.
Each one of the northern cyclones is almost as wide as the distance between Naples, Italy, and New York City – and the southern ones are even larger than that. They have very violent winds, reaching, in some cases, speeds as great as 220 mph (350 kph). Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, they are very close together and enduring.
There is nothing else like it that we know of in the solar system.
Jupiter’s south pole has cyclones, too. This computer-generated image of cyclones at Jupiter’s south pole was created using data from the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument on Juno.
Interestingly, the cyclones remain close to each other but never seem to merge together.
Not only are Jupiter’s storms unearthly, so are its auroras, which are much more powerful than any here, and “defy earthly laws of physics.”
Juno had also already shown that the planet’s equatorial belts extend much farther down into the atmosphere than thought, and new gravity measurements have also now shown a north-south asymmetry. Luciano Iess, Juno co-investigator from Sapienza University of Rome, said:
Juno’s measurement of Jupiter’s gravity field indicates a surprising north-south asymmetry, similar to the asymmetry observed in its zones and belts.
The stronger the asymmetry, the deeper the jet streams are. The Jovian weather layer, from the very top to a depth of 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers), is now estimated to contain about one percent of Jupiter’s mass (about 3 Earth masses). Earth’s atmosphere is less than one millionth the mass of the planet itself, by comparison.
Another, more distant view of Jupiter’s south pole.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt.
Juno has also sent back incredible views of Jupiter’s colorful belts in the equatorial regions.
Image via NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.
Color-enhanced image showing intricate details in Jupiter’s cloud patterns.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.
Juno also found that Jupiter rotates almost as a solid body, beneath the active weather layer.
This is really an amazing result, and future measurements by Juno will help us understand how the transition works between the weather layer and the rigid body below.
Juno’s discovery has implications for other worlds in our solar system and beyond. Our results imply that the outer differentially-rotating region should be at least three times deeper in Saturn and shallower in massive giant planets and brown dwarf stars.
Juno has conducted 10 science passes over Jupiter so far; the next one will be on April 1.
Bottom line: Thanks to Juno, we now know that Jupiter’s interior composition and structure appear different, and its winds more active, than originally thought. Also, Juno has now seen giant cyclones at Jupiter’s poles in greater detail than ever before.
DNA Tests Reveal Surprising Details About Tiny ‘Atacama Alien’
DNA Tests Reveal Surprising Details About Tiny ‘Atacama Alien’
The most comprehensive study to date performed on the so-called Atacama Alien has revealed, according to the first study, that 8 percent of the DNA was unmatched to human DNA. The second set of DNA tests matched 98 percent of the DNA.
Remeber the alien-like creature discovered in the Atacama desert of chile a while ago? Well, new DNA results have revealed a number of peculiar characteristics about the mysterious creature.
A complete genomic study of a skeleton discovered more than a decade ago in the Atacama desert (Chile), and ‘falsely’ taken as an alien, has revealed unpublished bone molecular rarities.
The findings of researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine eliminate any remaining dilemmas on the planetary origin of the specimen, assuring that it is human, and not an alien. The analysis also answers questions about the mysterious skeletal remains that have long been a genetic enigma.
Now, after five years of genomic analysis, Garry Nolan, professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford, and Atul Butte, director of the Institute of Computational Health Sciences at the University of California-San Francisco, in the United States, have identified the mutations responsible for the anomalous sample.
The researchers found mutations in not one, but several genes known to control bone development. In addition, some of these molecular oddities have never been described before.
The mysterious-looking skeleton, nicknamed Ata, was discovered more than a decade ago in an abandoned town in the Atacama desert in Chile.
After changing owners and finally finding a permanent home in Spain, the mummified specimen began to attract public attention.
Just six inches tall (about 15 centimeters), about the length of a dollar bill, with an elongated, angular skull and sunken, tilted eye sockets, the possibility of Ata coming from another world began to circulate on the Internet as people started speaking about aliens with extremely tiny bodies.
“I had heard about this specimen through a friend of mine, and I managed to get an image of it,” says Nolan. You can not look at this specimen and not think it’s interesting; It is quite dramatic. Then I said to my friend: “Look, whatever it is, if it has DNA, I can do the analysis.”
With the help of Ralph Lachman, a professor of Radiology at Stanford and an expert in a type of pediatric bone disease, Nolan made things clear.
His analysis pointed to a decisive conclusion: this was the skeleton of a human woman, probably a fetus, who had suffered serious genetic mutations.
In addition, Nolan saw that Ata, although most likely a fetus, had the bone composition of a 6-year-old girl, an indication that she had a rare bone aging disorder.
To understand the genetic basis of Ata, Nolan turned to Butte for help with genomic evaluation.
He accepted the challenge and performed such a thorough evaluation that he almost reached the level of patient care.
Butte noted that some people might wonder about the point of these in-depth analyzes.
“We thought it would be an interesting exercise to apply the tools we have today to really see what we could find,” he says. The phenotype, the symptoms and the size of this girl were extremely unusual, and the analysis of this kind of truly disconcerting and ancient samples better teaches us how to analyze the DNA of children nowadays under current conditions.“
To understand the genetic factors involved, Butte and Nolan extracted a small sample of DNA from Ata’s ribs and sequenced the entire genome.
The skeleton is approximately 40 years old, so its DNA is modern and relatively intact. In addition, the data collected from the complete genome sequencing showed that Ata’s molecular composition was aligned with that of a human genome.
Human but…
Nolan detected that 8 percent of the DNA was unmatched by human DNA, but that was due to a degraded sample, not to extraterrestrial biology. Later, a more sophisticated analysis could match up to 98 percent of the DNA.
The genomic results confirmed Ata’s Chilean lineage and presented a series of mutations in seven genes that, separately or in combinations, contribute to various bone deformities, facial malformations or skeletal dysplasia, more commonly known as dwarfism.
Some of these mutations, although found in genes that are known to cause disease, have never before been associated with bone growth or developmental disorders.
“Knowing these new mutational variants could be useful,” says Nolan, “because they add to the reservoir of known mutations that must be sought in humans with this type of bone or physical disorders.”
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An Alien star ‘collided’ with the Solar System 70,000 years ago and its effects still endure
An Alien star ‘collided’ with the Solar System 70,000 years ago and its effects still endure
About 70,000 years ago, a small reddish star approached our solar system and gravitationally disturbed comets and asteroids. Astronomers have verified that the movement of some of these objects is still marked by that stellar encounter.
About 70,000 years ago, the Scholz star grazed our solar system and, although it barely possessed 9% of its mass, it caused changes in the orbits of dozens of comets.
In 2015, when astronomers discovered that event, they assumed that it didn’t leave behind many consequences.
Image Credit: Credit: NASA, Michael Osadciw/University of Rochester, Illustration-T.Reyes
However, researchers from the universities of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and Complutense (Madrid, Spain) have shown that the event did leave behind a number of important consequences.
“In principle, one would expect those positions to be evenly distributed in the sky, particularly if these objects come from the Oort cloud,” says the study’s lead authorCarlos de la Fuente Marcos from the Complutense University of Madrid.
“However, what we find is very different: a statistically significant accumulation of radiants.”
When analyzing the positions of some 340 objects from the outer Solar System, scientists discovered that several dozens of them were not where they expected them to be located.
In addition, they perceived that several comets followed trajectories that locate their origins in different places. In the absence of further research, these facts disseminated by the Royal British Astronomical Society raise new questions about our Solar System, such as how much material was previously in another part of the galaxy.
Among scholars of the controversial and hypothetical Planet X, also called Nibiru, some argue that because of the large size and appearance -4 times the size of Jupiter and reddish in color- that has been attributed to it, Nibiru is not a planet but rather a star, more precisely a red dwarf.
Currently, the star of Scholz is a small red dwarf, dark in the constellation of Monoceros, about 20 light-years away and moving in the opposite direction from our solar system, never to return.
However, at the closest point in its passage through the solar system, the Scholz star would have been a star of magnitude 10, about 50 times weaker than it can normally be seen with the naked eye at night.
Within any million year period, there could be as many as 600 stars passing within 16.3 light years of our Sun, writes Science Alert.
However, it is magnetically active and can record bursts that make it briefly thousands of times brighter.
So, it is possible that the Scholz star was visible to the naked eye by our ancestors only 70,000 years ago.
Snow with an orange-tint has been seen in countries around the globe including Russia, Ukraine and Romania.
The rare occurrence, which only happens once every 5 years, is due to snow and rain mixing with dust that has accumulated in the air from Sahara Desert storms, the BBC reports.
“Looking at satellite imagery from NASA, it shows a lot of sand and dust in the atmosphere drifting across the Mediterranean,” Steven Keates, a weather forecaster at the UK’s Met Office, told The Independent. “When it rains or snows, it drags down whatever is up there, if there is sand in the atmosphere.”
What turned snow orange in Sochi, Russia? Believe it or not, according to the Athens Observatory, winds transported sand and dust from the Sahara some 1500 miles (2400 km) from north Africa to southern Russia. More could be on the way Monday.
Although it’s happened before, there’s more sand now, which has caused people to complain of sand getting in their mouths. In Greece, the desert dust has blanketed the entire country. Greece has the highest concentration of dust in more than a decade, according to The Athens Observatory meteorological service, CNN reports.
In February 2007, orange snow which was apparently oily and smelled, was reported in various regions across Siberia.
Although some suggested the snow was discolored due to dust picked up from a desert storm, environmental groups believed otherwise, considering high levels of iron, acids and nitrates were in the snow, according to The Guardian. An exact cause for the mysterious event was never determined.
Artist impression of what an artificial meteor shower would look like.
Credit: ALE.
The latest venture in the burgeoning field of private aerospace might be fake meteor showers. A Japanese company wants to revamp the whole fireworks experience by offering on-demand shooting stars that light up the sky at a precise location and timing. Some people, however, are concerned that the firey debris might spell trouble for satellites in the same orbit, which happens to be preferred by intelligence agencies.
Artificial shooting stars
Astro Live Experiences, or ALE, plans on firing its first shooting star show in the summer of 2019. If all goes well, a buyer — which can be anyone from a city looking to offer its citizens something different to a wealthy rancher who wants to surprise his daughter — will be treated to a meteor shower lasting a couple of seconds. At the right moment, a spacecraft would eject 15 to 20 small metallic pebbles on command, each less than half an inch wide. The pebbles are made from the same heat shield material that lines the bottom of space capsules, which chars rather than burns upon atmospheric re-entry.
The company is the brainchild of University of Tokyo astronomer Lena Okajima. Initially, it was supposed to be an unconventional opening light show for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but the researchers found they could turn the project into a demand service around the world. While some private ventures, such as SpaceX or Blue Origin, are in the business of sending astronauts, cargo, and even tourists into space, ALE is in the business of entertainment.
In December, ALE plans on launching two microsatellites below an altitude of 220 miles. Each $3-million microsatellite weighs 150 pounds (68kg) and carries 300 to 400 shooting star particles, along with enough propellant for 27 months of operation in orbit. When the fuel runs out, the microsatellite will be burned in Earth’s atmosphere. The ultimate plan is to set up a constellation of six such satellites capable of serving light shows round the clock, almost anywhere on Earth.
But not everyone is following ALE with 4th of July enthusiasm.
“I salute them for cleverness and for their technical expertise, but from an orbital debris standpoint, it’s not a great idea,” University of Michigan astronomer Patrick Seitzer told BuzzFeed News. “I’m concerned space will be getting crowded in low-earth orbit in the next 10 years.”
In their defense, ALE claims it has run simulations releasing particles for every hour a year against the US Strategic Command’s satellite trajectory catalog, finding there was no risk of collision. What’s more, the particles are supposed to fire for only 4-5 seconds before rapidly falling to 37 miles above Earth, which is too low for low-Earth-orbit satellites and too high for experimental balloons.
There are currently only 40 or so official satellites traveling in low orbit below 220 miles above Earth’s surface. There are, however, some orbiting bodies that aren’t listed in the catalog, such as spy satellites. But in the future, this sparse orbit is expected to get crowded — and fast. For instance, Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to put 7,500 new broadband internet satellites in orbits about 210 miles high, just below ALE’s satellites.
The first ALE launch has already been approved by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. If all goes well, the world should get a test of the first artificial meteor shower in 2019.
Two 'UFOs' caught on video flying past military helicopter on rescue mission
Two 'UFOs' caught on video flying past military helicopter on rescue mission
The footage of the strange silver disc-shaped objects has been revealed by British UFO expert Jason Gleave.
By John Jeffay
A pair of “ UFOs ” zoom past a military helicopter as it hovers over a sinking ship off the French coast.
The silver disc-shaped objects were caught on camera by a local news crew who were filming the Spanish vessel after it smashed into rocks.7
The footage has been revealed for the first time by British UFO expert Jason Gleave.
What is believed to be UFOs pass the helicopter as it hovers over a boat(Image: Cascade News)
Twelve people were rescued from the 100m cargo ship The Luno after it hit the sea wall at Anglet, off the south-western coast of France in February 2014, and broke in two.
The ship was carrying fertiliser when its engine failed in the choppy Atlantic ocean.
Startling new footage has now been revealed showing how the UFOs flew in formation close by to the chopper as if keeping a watch on the rescue operation.
Jason Gleave, 46, who has studied the film using the latest computer technology, believes the objects are not drones or seagulls.
The former RAF man, from Liverpool, said: "Upon analysing the footage the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close.
The video of the mystery objects has been closely studied using the latest computer technology(Image: Cascade News)
"Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions.
"The sighting was captured by a local television news company who had been covering the dramatic events.
"Upon closer analysis of the video frames the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other.
"It is difficult to get an accurate distance for the two objects from the stationary helicopter. This was a truly fascinating piece of video footage which I do believe the analysed frames do not give it full credit."
UFO expert Jason Gleave has written books on the subject
The startling footage from February 2014 has only just come to light after Jason featured it in his new book UFO PHOTO, published by Flying Disk Press run by Philip Mantle, of Pontefract, West Yorkshire.
Nick Pope, who ran the Ministry of Defence's 'UFO desk' for three years, has backed Jason's research by writing the introduction to the book.
He said: "Jason has been involved in researching and investigating UFOs and other mysteries (like many experts in this field, he uses the phrase “high strangeness events” to describe a lot of this) for many years, but his particular area of expertise is imagery analysis.
"Jason has skill and experience in carefully examining photos and videos, sorting out the fact from the fiction."
Deze wetenschappers denken een piramide te hebben ontdekt op Mars. Lees hier over hun opmerkelijke vondst
Deze wetenschappers denken een piramide te hebben ontdekt op Mars. Lees hier over hun opmerkelijke vondst
Al lange tijd vragen wetenschappers zich af of er leven is of ooit is geweest op Mars. The Cydonia Institute heeft nu afbeeldingen gevonden van vermeende kunstmatige structuren op het Marsoppervlak.
In de kloof Candor Chasma op de rode planeet troffen de onderzoekers een driehoekige piramidevormige formatie aan, die sterk lijkt op de zogeheten Reuleaux-piramide.
De formatie is duidelijk te zien op vijf foto’s die zijn gemaakt door de Mars Global Surveyor en de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Intelligentie
Volgens de geologen en aardwetenschappers zijn er twee mogelijke verklaringen. De formatie kan zijn ontstaan als gevolg van natuurlijke mechanismen of zijn achtergelaten door een intelligentie.
(MRO/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Het ontwerp van de driehoekige piramide is uitzonderlijk als je kijkt naar de geometrie en symmetrie, aldus de onderzoekers.
Ze merken op dat soortgelijke monumenten op aarde worden gebouwd door moderne ingenieurs en worden gevonden in landen als China.
Meer foto’s
Ondanks natuurlijke afzettingen en erosie zijn de zijden van de formatie erg symmetrisch. De onderzoekers achten de kans dan ook klein dat de piramide is ontstaan door natuurlijke processen.
De kans is groot, zo stellen ze, dat de formatie een kunstmatige oorsprong heeft. “We raden de NASA en de Universiteit van Arizona aan er meer foto’s van te maken met de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,” zeggen ze.
Belangrijke kandidaat
Als ook die foto’s wijzen in de richting van een kunstmatige oorsprong, zou de formatie een belangrijke kandidaat moeten zijn voor het onderzoek naar potentiële archeologische voorwerpen op Mars, besluit het team.
ONVERKLAARBARE VREEMDE VERSCHIJNSELEN IN DE LUCHT NEMEN TOE
ONVERKLAARBARE VREEMDE VERSCHIJNSELEN IN DE LUCHT NEMEN TOE
Gedurende de eerste maanden van dit jaar hebben zich al een aantal vreemde verschijnselen voorgedaan in de lucht, een fenomeen dat wereldwijd voor komt.
Het lijkt dat dat geen incidenten waren, want nog steeds komen er meldingen en beelden van bizarre dingen in de lucht die eigenlijk niet kunnen tenzij er wat afwijkends aan de hand is.
Van alle vreemde dingen die zich voor doen, zijn misschien een aantal wel te verklaren als natuurlijk fenomeen, maar het begint een beetje een optelsom te worden van teveel vreemde dingen in een relatief korte periode.
Nu een derde locatie waar zich iets vergelijkbaars voor doet en dat is in de Amerikaanse staat Californië. Het ziet er als volg uitt en is absoluut niet de zon. De opname is gemaakt op 23 maart tijdens zonsondergang. De richting waarin deze opname is gemaakt is echter het oosten, terwijl de zon ondergaat in het westen.
Wanneer je deze waarneming vergelijkt met die uit Ecuador en Thailand, dan zijn er veel overeenkomsten.
Dan naar Kelowna, een stad in de Canadese provincie Brits-Colombia waar zich een wel heel vreemd verschijnsel voordeed.
De volgende foto's zijn afgelopen dinsdag gemaakt door Terri Knox en gepubliceerd door het lokale televisiestation Global News.
De beste verklaring waar de meteoroloog van Global News mee kon komen, is dat het wel veroorzaakt zou worden door de lichtval achter de bergen in de verte.
De volgende foto's laten ook een soort vreemde scheiding zien tussen schaduw en licht. De eerste is genomen in Florida en de tweede in Kansas.
Bij deze foto zijn in de verste verte geen bergen te zien die een dergelijk fenomeen zouden kunnen veroorzaken zoals volgens de meteoroloog en toch, ook hier een vreemde scheiding tussen licht en donker.
Joeri Gagarin, bijgenaamd de “Columbus van de Cosmos” of de “eerste popster van het Oostblok”, was de eerste mens in de ruimte in 1961. Bijna zeven jaar later kwam hij om tijdens een ongeluk met een gevechtsvliegtuig. Morgen is hij exact vijftig jaar dood. Wat er precies is gebeurd, is nog steeds een mysterie. Sinds zijn mysterieuze dood duiken er voortdurend theorieën op.
Joeri Aleksejevitsj Gagarin, een op 9 maart 1934 geboren boerenzoon, raakte geselecteerd voor de eerste Sovjet-kosmonautenklas en speelde het klaar om op 12 april 1961 met zijn Vostok-1 de allereerste mens in de ruimte te worden. Berichten dat zijn missie van 108 minuten bij de terugkeer bijna fataal afliep, kwamen pas later bovendrijven en werden zelfs nog in 2007 in het vluchtleidingscentrum Tsoup nabij Moskou ontkend.
Hoe dan ook, Gagarin werd een uithangbord van de Sovjet-Unie en mocht wereldwijd zijn triomf vieren. Vreemd genoeg viste hij nadien steeds naast het net om opnieuw de ruimte in te gaan, al zijn er bronnen die zeggen dat sommigen hun held liever niet bij een eventueel ongeluk wilden zien omkomen. Bovendien bleek Gagarin, net als sommigen van zijn collega’s, niet vies te zijn van alcohol en andere dames dan zijn vrouw.
Tragische trainingstocht
Een ongeval kwam er toch, op 27 maart 1968. Maar niet in de ruimte. Tijdens een trainingstocht nabij Moskou met een Mig-15 gevechtstoestel kwam Gagarin op 34-jarige leeftijd om het leven, net als zijn co-piloot. “Mijn missie zit erop. Ik keer terug” waren de laatste woorden van Gagarin vlak voor zijn dood.
Op last van het Centraal Comité van de Communistische partij werd de volgende dag een staatscommissie opgericht om het ongeluk te onderzoeken. Korte tijd later werd geheimhouding over de conclusies bevolen om te vermijden dat er geen twijfel zou ontstaan omtrent de professionele bekwaamheid van de held van de natie. Bovendien werd de commissie ontbonden. Het enige officiële document is het door het Politbureau ondertekende overlijdensbericht waarin staat dat beide piloten “tengevolge van een catastrofe tijdens een oefenvlucht zijn omgekomen”. Er werd met geen enkel woord over een oorzaak gerept.
Mysterieuze oorzaak
Er ontstond een waaier van verklaringen en speculaties, de ene al wat spectaculairder dan de andere, zoals terrorisme. Meer bepaald zou secretaris-generaal Leonid Brezjnev van de Sovjet-Russische communistische partij, vanwege de populariteit van Gagarin, hebben bevolen de kosmonaut te doden. Of dat de Held van Sovjet-Unie slachtoffer was geworden van de wraak van buitenaardse wezens.
Meer plausibel: botsing met een vogel - maar door ornithologen ontkracht - of met een weerballon. Mogelijk was de cabine van de Mig niet helemaal afgesloten waardoor beide inzittenden naar buiten zijn geslingerd. Of zou het toestel in de wervelstroom van een ander zijn geraakt. Volgens een andere theorie was Gagarin ladderzat in de Mig gestapt. De vreemdste theorieën duiken op, maar tot nog toe weet niemand precies hoe Joeri Gagarin om het leven kwam.
The recent “disclosures” of the Pentagon’s UFO research project and the accompanying videos of allegedly anomalous aerial objects caused quite a stir in the ufology world. While these releases were a rare opportunity for mainstream news outlets to discuss the UFO phenomenon in a legitimate light, many veteran researchers urged caution. In the weeks that followed, many inconsistencies and reasonable explanations for the program surfaced which cast some doubt on the claims made by Tom DeLonge’s new “To the Stars Academy” research group. In particular, many critics noted that the ties between former Nevada Senator Harry Reid who secured the funding and Las Vegas-based UFO enthusiast and aerospace magnate Robert Bigelow were suspicious, reeing not of the alien or otherworldly, but of the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” political favor variety.
An angle which was of course amplified in certain political circles.
To help clear the air and discuss what he knows about these government UFO research programs (or at least is able to discuss publicly), Reid recently sat down with New York Magazine’s Eric Benson for an interview about these programs. Reid began the interview stating that “if we’re here to talk about little green men or stuff that you want to look at that was found in New Mexico or something, I’m not interested. If you’re here to talk about science, I’m happy to do that.” Reid then goes on to fill in some backstory about how he was put in touch with Bigelow through Nevada journalist and Coast to CoastAMhost George Knapp shortly after Bigelow inherited a small fortune following his father’s death.
Robert Bigelow
Knapp and Bigelow were both keenly interested in UFO phenomena, Reid says, and began sending him information about some of the more high-profile UFO incidents and alleged crashes like Roswell. While Reid remains skeptical about most of these claims, he says the sheer abundance of UFO reports drew him in. “Mainly what interested me is so many people had seen these strange things in the air,” Reid says, “that was interesting to me.” It was this interest – and allegations that America’s rivals were putting resources into investigating anomalous aerial phenomena – that Reid says led to securing funding for the now-infamous Pentagon UFO research program led by Luis Elizondo:
What we decided to do — it would be black money, we wouldn’t have a big debate on the Senate floor over it. They would put in their defense appropriation bill, 11 million bucks. The purpose of it was to study aerial phenomena. The money was given, a directive was given to the Pentagon, to put this out to bid, which they did.
Reid says the majority of the money went to Bigelow, who created a centralized storage facility for official documentation and reports of sightings, alleged alien artifacts, and other pieces of the UFO puzzle. Reid notes that one reason the UFO phenomenon hasn’t been seriously discussed in the military or government is because many career g-men are “afraid somebody will think they’re some kind of a wacko.”
Could Bigelow Aerospace be any less discreet with their logo design?
Reid ends the interview by attacking his interview and the press at large, arguing that the media either doesn’t want to or doesn’t have the resources to comb through the thousands of reports and documents the government (and Bigelow) have amassed on UFO phenomena. Uh, where do I sign up?
Snow is white. Any other color is not right. Grey means cars have been through it. Yellow means dogs have been through it. Black means you slipped, fell and are lying face down in it. What does orange snow mean? That’s the question being asked across Eastern Europe as Russia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine are digging out from under a blanket of bright orange snow that stretches to the Black Sea. This has ski resort owners seeing red because skiers don’t want to spend their green stuff to slalom on orange stuff that reminds some of the landscape of the Red Planet. Is this a sign of the O-pocalypse? (More pictures here and here.)
The “nothing to worry about” crowd (i.e. the government and weather reporters) are telling people wondering if this orange snow is safe to touch, shovel, lick, make into an orange snowman or treat like ordinary white stuff that the color comes from the sands of the Sahara Desert – specifically, a Saharan sandstorm kicked up by a recent cyclone in northern Africa. For backup, they used NASA satellite images showing sand in the upper levels of the atmosphere. And it’s true … this is a condition that has happened before under similar circumstances. For example, orange snow blanketed Saratov in far western Russian in 2015 and was also blamed on Saharan sand.
Normal snowman
But never in Romania. Why is this orange snow falling in eastern Europe? Is some world power testing a new form of weather control weapon? That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Doctors in Romania are warning residents — particularly the elderly or those with respiratory conditions, asthma or allergies — to stay indoors for a few days until the snow melts. The danger doesn’t end there as the melted snow fills bodies of water used for drinking or food. While the first suspect might be Russia, one of the heaviest concentrations or the orange snow fell in Sochi, the beautiful Russian city which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. Was this an experiment gone wrong? Or is some other country to blame?
The mysterious Siberian orange snow of 2007 was also blamed on sand – this time from Kazakhstan — even though many residents and government inspectors admitted it smelled bad, felt oily and had a high lead content – not exactly sno-cone worthy. While industrial pollution was suspected, residents were told that it would be “difficult” to identify the guilty party. Again, that orange snow was deemed “safe” but farmers were still advised not to let their animals walk in it or drink it.
Orange snow from a carton is OK
Pictures from various resorts show people skiing in the orange snow. Have we really become so conditioned to accept unusual weather that we no longer care to wait for answers? Will resort owners start advertising odd-colored snow as a new feature?
When it comes to the chance of getting a straight answer from the powers that be about this mysterious snow, is orange the new bleak?
Not so mysterious, the snow was orange colored by and from the sands of the Sahara. This was carried away by the wind and in the air layers and came with the snow down. We have already experienced more frequently in Belgium that everything outside with a layer of and from the Sahara in mind was ...
In this video we look at an 'uptick" of unusual sky phenomenon appearing high in the skies above planet earth in the past couple of days.
Something is drastically changed in our skies, for example the strange sunset split over Kelowna, Canada photographed by Terri Knox makes you wonder what is going on.
Credit image left: Terry Knox - Global News.
Terry Knox who sent the images to Global News said that the images have been not edited and locals were ’spellbound’ by the sight.
According to Global BC senior meteorologist Kristi Gordon the split was most likely due to a terrain feature blocking part of the sun’s rays but Blandy Castillo who lives in Kelowna said that it never happened before, and the mountains are there every day, it was something with either the sun or the atmosphere.
Credit image left: Terry Knox - Global News.
Indeed it is the question whether mountains or terrain features are responsible for blocking parts of the sun since similar images have been captured lately in other parts of the world showing a sunset split without mountains or terrain features.
While it can of course be a natural phenomenon, we may also wonder whether something invisible blocks the sun's rays or not.
Exoplanet Search Turns Up 15 New Alien Worlds, and One May Have Water
Exoplanet Search Turns Up 15 New Alien Worlds, and One May Have Water
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com Contributor
An illustration with exoplanet data in the foreground.
Credit: Tokyo Institute of Technology
Researchers have discovered 15 new planets around cool stars known as red dwarfs, and one of those planets might be able to host liquid water on its surface.
In a new study, the researchers combined space telescope data with follow-up ground investigation to observe several red dwarfs, which are dim stars that weigh 7.5 to 50 percent the mass of the sun. The team spotted three exoplanets, each slightly larger than Earth, around red dwarf star K2-155, located 200 light-years away. The outermost planet of the system was a particularly interesting finding, as it had a radius about 1.6 times that of Earth and may be within this star's habitable zone, the researchers said. A star's habitable zone is the region where orbiting planets could be the right temperature to retain liquid water.
The team used observations from the NASA Kepler spacecraft's second mission, K2, and ground-based telescopes such as the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) in Spain to gather data on the 15 exoplanets, according to a recent statement about the research. To determine if K2-155's outermost planet, K2-155d, could have water on its surface, the team modeled what's known about this world in a three-dimensional climate simulation.
The results of the Tokyo Institute of Technology's 3D global climate simulations for exoplanet K2-155d are plotted here. Surface temperatures are shown as a function of insolation flux, which is the amount of incoming stellar radiation, and it's estimated at 1.67 ± 0.38. When the insolation exceeds 1.5, a so-called runaway greenhouse effect occurs, so this point signals a cut-off point for life-friendly temperatures. If the insolation is under 1.5, the surface temperature is more likely to be moderate.
Credit: The Astronomical Journal
They found that this exoplanet may have liquid water. But despite the exciting possibilities, the researchers remain cautious until further analysis can confirm the initial findings, according to the statement.
"Red dwarf systems, especially coolest red dwarfs, are just beginning to be investigated, so they are very exciting targets for future exoplanet research," said Teruyuki Hirano, a researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and lead author of the new work.
In April 2018, the NASA mission Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)is scheduled to launch; that spacecraft may provide greater precision for researchers in search of distant planets with conditions that could support life. "TESS is expected to find many candidate planets around bright stars closer to Earth," Hirano said. "This will greatly facilitate follow-up observations, including investigation of planetary atmospheres and determining the precise orbit of the planets."
An artist's illustration of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will hunt for exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system. It is scheduled to launch in April 2018.
A communications scholar offers an argument that science isn’t broken or in crisis and that it’s media’s job to educate people about how science works.
What’s the media’s role in helping to fix a perception that science is broken, if such a perception exists?
Have you heard people say that NASA lies, or that scientists are just chasing grants, or even that science itself is brokenor in crisis? We at EarthSky often hear these comments, and, while they don’t surprise us anymore, we do ponder the general public’s perception of science, especially given the public debate in the U.S. over climate change and other science-related issues, and especially in a media climate that allows fake news. This month (March 12, 2018), in the peer-reviewedProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), communications scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson documented three alternative news narratives about science and its challenges in media today.
She argued that science isn’t broken or in crisis. And she said it’s the job of the media to educate people about how science works.
First, what is the public’s perception of science? Has that perception deteriorated? This short article at the Pew Research Center – from April, 2017 – suggests it hasn’t and that, in fact:
… public confidence in science has remained stable for decades.
However, Pew said, a segment of the U.S. population (6 percent) has “hardly any confidence” in the scientific community. Pew is basing its conclusion on data collected by NORC, an independent research organization at the University of Chicago, whose General Social Survey (GSS) has been running each year since 1972. Pew said GSS results released a year ago – on March 29, 2017 – show:
… that 40 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the scientific community, while half (50 percent) have only some confidence and 6 percent have hardly any confidence.
Despite these survey results, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and others worry about a public perception of science as broken. Jamieson is a communications professor and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. This academic center runs FactCheck.org, which examines the factual accuracy of U.S. political campaign advertisements. She and Joe Hilgard of Illinois State University contributed a chapter to The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication, published in 2017. Their chapter was titled Science as “Broken” Versus Science as “Self-Correcting.”
In her March 12 essay, Jamieson outlined three narratives used by the media in science stories. She included the quest discovery narrative, the counterfeit discovery narrative and the systemic problem narrative (the overall idea that science is broken).
In typical quest discovery stories about science, you’ll find words like advance, path-breaking, breakthrough, or discovery.
Jamieson pointed out that this narrative is employed particularly when presenting science that’s useful to humankind. And many science stories do lean that way. Of the 60 studies that received the most media coverage from May 2016 to April 2017, she wrote, nearly half were related to human health and well-being, according to the tracking firm Altmetric.
On the other hand, Jamieson said, the media also frequently employs a counterfeit discovery narrative. We’ve all read this story. It’s the tale of a deceptive scientist and a dishonorable quest, the story of someone who has “gulled custodians of knowledge” such as science journal editors and peer reviewers. Jamieson provided an interesting sequence of headlines related to Haruko Obokata, who reported having developed a method of developing pluripotent stem cells. The sequence started with:
Indictments of null hypothesis testing and P values [both commonly used in psychology] were rationalized away as well. Such inaction warranted “broken, uncorrecting” and perhaps even “crisis” characterizations, and the inference that such terms were more realistic than histrionic.
In other words, some sciences – such as psychology – may have their own unique and troublesome issues.
The psychology example feeds into Jamieson’s argument that the third narrative – science is broken – is an overgeneralization. Yet, in media today, many stories do suggest science as a whole (or in some large part) is broken. You can find stories like that here and here and here and here. Jamieson also pointed to some science writers today, who tend to concentrate on what she calls a problem-focused news narrative in science, with headlines and storylines to match. She said:
In such accounts, scientists are portrayed as publicizing problems, not proffering solutions.
Jamieson doesn’t think science is broken. She stated in her essay:
… generalizations about a crisis in science aren’t justified by the available evidence.
But she thinks the issue is important, because news media portrayals of science affect how we all think about it. That’s why she concluded that:
… those who communicate science, including journalists, scholars, and scientists themselves, should more accurately convey its investigatory nature, the self-correction process, and corrective measures without legitimizing a faulty narrative.
By the way, Jamieson identified ways that science narratives can be improved in the media. Among her suggestions:Science journalism is many things. Is part of its job to educate people about science? Artist’s illustration via Nature.
Include information that reflects the practices and protections of science, such as the trial-and-error process, and the ways that science detects and protects itself from deception;
Reserve “dire characterizations of the state of science” for cases in which “integrity-threatening problems are being ignored”;
Treat self-correction as a central part of the scientific process, not an afterthought – before regarding a rise in retractions as a “crisis in science,” consider the argument that they are a “signal that science is working”;
Focus on problems without shortchanging solutions: “To perform their accountability function well, reporters should not only alert the public to problems in consequential science but also scrutinize how and how well they are being addressed.”
Her essay concluded:
By responsibly publicizing both breaches of integrity and attempts to forestall them, news can perform its accountability function without undermining public trust in the most reliable form of knowledge generation humans have devised.
Bottom line: Kathleen Jamieson analyzed narratives used in media to portray science. She argued that science isn’t broken or in crisis and that it’s the job of the media to educate people about how science works.
TRAPPIST-1 is an ultra-cool red dwarf star that is slightly larger, but much more massive, than the planet Jupiter, located about 40 light-years from the sun in the constellation Aquarius.
Among planetary systems, TRAPPIST-1 is of particular interest because seven planets have been detected orbiting this star, a larger number of planets than have been than detected in any other exoplanetary system. In addition, all of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are Earth-sized and terrestrial, making them an ideal focus of study for planet formation and potential habitability.
Arizona State University (ASU) scientists Cayman Unterborn, Steven Desch and Alejandro Lorenzo of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, with Natalie Hinkel of Vanderbilt University, have been studying these planets for habitability, specifically related to water composition. Their findings were published March 19, 2018, in Nature Astronomy.
The calculations equal water
The TRAPPIST-1 planets are curiously light. From their measured mass and volume, all of this system’s planets are less dense than rock. On many other, similarly low-density worlds, it is thought that this less-dense component consists of atmospheric gases. Geoscientist Unterborn explained:
But the TRAPPIST-1 planets are too small in mass to hold onto enough gas to make up the density deficit. Even if they were able to hold onto the gas, the amount needed to make up the density deficit would make the planet much puffier than we see.
So scientists studying this planetary system have determined that the low-density component must be something else that is abundant: water. This has been predicted before, and possibly even seen on larger planets like GJ1214b, so the interdisciplinary ASU-Vanderbilt team, comprised of geoscientists and astrophysicists, set out to determine just how much water could be present on these Earth-sized planets and how and where the planets may have formed.
But how much is there?
To determine the composition of the TRAPPIST-1 planets, the team used a unique software package, developed by Unterborn and Lorenzo, that uses state-of-the-art mineral physics calculators. The software, called ExoPlex, allowed the team to combine all of the available information about the TRAPPIST-1 system, including the chemical makeup of the star, rather than being limited to just the mass and radius of individual planets.
Much of the data used by the team to determine composition was collected from a dataset called the Hypatia Catalog, developed by contributing author Hinkel. This catalog merges data on the stellar abundances of stars near to our sun, from over 150 literature sources, into a massive repository.
What they found through their analyses was that the relatively “dry” inner planets (“b” and “c”) were consistent with having less than 15 percent water by mass (for comparison, Earth is 0.02 percent water by mass). The outer planets (“f” and “g”) were consistent with having more than 50 percent water by mass. This equates to the water of hundreds of Earth-oceans. The masses of the TRAPPIST-1 planets continue to be refined, so these proportions must be considered estimates for now, but the general trends seem clear. Steven Desch, ASU astrophysicist and contributing author, said:
What we are seeing for the first time are Earth-sized planets that have a lot of water or ice on them.
But the researchers also found that the ice-rich TRAPPIST-1 planets are much closer to their host star than the ice line. The “ice line” in any solar system, including TRAPPIST-1’s, is the distance from the star beyond which water exists as ice and can be accreted into a planet; inside the ice line water exists as vapor and will not be accreted. Through their analyses, the team determined that the TRAPPIST-1 planets must have formed much farther from their star, beyond the ice line, and migrated in to their current orbits close to the host star.
There are many clues that planets in this system and others have undergone substantial inward migration, but this study is the first to use composition to bolster the case for migration. What’s more, knowing which planets formed inside and outside of the ice line allowed the team to quantify for the first time how much migration took place.
Because stars like TRAPPIST-1 are brightest right after they form and gradually dim thereafter, the ice line tends to move in over time, like the boundary between dry ground and snow-covered ground around a dying campfire on a snowy night. The exact distances the planets migrated inward depends on when they formed. Desch said:
The earlier the planets formed, the farther away from the star they needed to have formed to have so much ice.
But for reasonable assumptions about how long planets take to form, the TRAPPIST-1 planets must have migrated inward from at least twice as far away as they are now.
This graph shows the minimum starting distances of the ice-rich TRAPPIST-1 planets (especially f and g) from their star (horizontal axis) as a function of how quickly they formed after their host star was born (vertical axis). The blue line represents a model where water condenses to ice at 170 K[-153 Fahrenheit, -103 Celsius], as in our solar system’s planet-forming disk. The red line applies to water condensing to ice at 212 K [-78 F, -61 C], appropriate to the TRAPPIST-1 disk. If planets formed quickly, they must have formed farther away (and migrated in a greater distance) to contain significant ice. Because TRAPPIST-1 dims over time, if the planets formed later, they could have formed closer to the host star and still be ice-rich.
Too much of a good thing
Interestingly, while we think of water as vital for life, the TRAPPIST-1 planets may have too much water to support life. Hinkel explained:
We typically think having liquid water on a planet as a way to start life, since life, as we know it on Earth, is composed mostly of water and requires it to live. However, a planet that is a water world, or one that doesn’t have any surface above the water, does not have the important geochemical or elemental cycles that are absolutely necessary for life.
Ultimately, this means that while M-dwarf stars, like TRAPPIST-1, are the most common stars in the universe (and while it’s likely that there are planets orbiting these stars), the huge amount of water they are likely to have makes them unfavorable for life to exist, especially enough life to create a detectable signal in the atmosphere that can be observed. Hinkel said:
It’s a classic scenario of “too much of a good thing.”
So, while we’re unlikely to find evidence of life on the TRAPPIST-1 planets, through this research we may gain a better understanding of how icy planets form and what kinds of stars and planets we should be looking for in our continued search for life.
Bottom line: All 7 of the TRAPPIST-1 planets are Earth-sized and terrestrial, making them an ideal focus of study for planet formation and potential habitability.
The Magellanic Stream – 300,000 light-years long – arches around our Milky Way. It’s too faint and tenuous to study directly, so astronomers probed it by looking to distant quasars.
The Magellanic Stream is a faint and diffuse cloud of gas, long associated with the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, dwarf galaxies orbiting our Milky Way. These astronomers used distant quasars, here labeled A, B and C, to understand the source of the gas cloud.
Astronomers said on March 23, 2018, that they’ve now confirmed the source of a huge cloud of gas arching around our Milky Way galaxy. The gas cloud is known as the Magellanic Stream. It’s galaxy-sized, 300,000 light-years long, in contrast to our Milky Way’s 100,000 light-year diameter. The cloud appears to be shunted away from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two of the many dwarf galaxies orbiting our Milky Way. But which of the Clouds is the source of the stream of gas? Now, by scrutinizing the chemical makeup of the gas, astronomers say they’re confident one branch of the cloud, sometimes called the Leading Arm, is coming from the Small Magellanic Cloud.
The gravity of the Large Magellanic Cloud has apparently tugged the gas stream from its smaller companion. The new study is published in the peer-reviewedAstrophysical Journal.
The gas in the Magellanic Stream is difficult to study directly because it’s so faint and tenuous. Astronomers seeking the source of the gas don’t look at the gas directly.
Instead, they aim toward distant quasars located behind the Magellanic Stream. As the quasars’ light pierces the gas, trace amounts of various elements in the gas absorb specific wavelengths of the quasar-light. The team used spectroscopic analysis of the quasars’ light to reveal chemical abundances in the gas cloud. The measurements came from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope as well as spectrographs on the Green Bank Telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia.
Astronomers first sighted the Magellanic Stream in 1965. They first linked it to the Magellanic Clouds in 1974. This arching stream of gas, now known to connect the Magellanic Clouds to the Milky Way, is thought to be younger than our galaxy, only 1 or 2 billion years old.
The astronomers on the new study credit Blair Savage, an emeritus professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for laying the groundwork that led to the current understanding of the Magellanic Stream. Savage worked for decades to understand the gas complexes around the Milky Way, including the Magellanic Stream. Six of the astronomers on the current paper – now at various institutions including the Space Telescope Science Institute and University of Wisconsin-Madison – were originally recruited by Savage to tackle the problem during their training at UW-Madison.
The authors of the new study said knowledge about the Magellanic Stream will help astronomers refine their models of how the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds orbit our Milky Way. Elena D’Onghia of University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the new study’s authors, commented in a statement:
We still don’t know how the Milky Way has formed. We have this huge amount of gas sitting around the Milky Way, and we still don’t know its origin. Knowing where it comes from helps us understand how galaxies form, including our Milky Way.
From the Southern Hemisphere, the Magellanic Clouds appear in the sky as fuzzy offshoots of the starlit trail of the Milky Way. The gas cloud cannot be perceived with the unaided eye, despite the fact that it contains the mass of several hundred million suns.
Astronomers say this gas that might someday rain down on our galaxy and spark new star formation.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (at bottom) are seen in this 8-minute time exposure, above the Southern African Large Telescope.
Bottom line: Astronomers have been working for decades to gain insights into the vast gas cloud, called the Magellanic Stream, that arches around our Milky Way galaxy. They now say the Small Magellanic Cloud is the source of the Leading Arm of the Stream.
Both Aerospace Corporation and ESA have updated their predictions for the fall of Tiangong-1. View China’s 1st space station online, before it falls, March 28 starting at 12 UTC.
Tiangong-1 potential reentry area. Map showing the area between 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south latitude (in green), over which Tiangong-1 could reenter.
Have you been hearing specific reentry locations for China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, aka Heavenly Palace 1? I heard Michigan at one point, then Wisconsin. Don’t believe these specific predictions. Experts are still saying reentry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (see map below). At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
It is possible to narrow down the time of reentry, however. The most recent calculation by Aerospace Corporation (March 22, 2018) is now calling for it to happen around April 1, 2018 plus or minus three days. The European Space Agency (ESA), in its March 23 update, is giving the dates as March 30 to April 3, and still calls these dates highly variable. And, of course, they are subject to change.
You can get a last glimpse of Tiangong-1 – during one of its very last passages across our skies – via the Virtual Telescope Project and Tenagra Observatories. Currently, this live coverage is scheduled for March 28, 2018, starting at 12 UTC (7 a.m. CDT on March 28; translate to your time zone). Virtual Telescope’s page says the time of the event is also subject to change, if the Tiangong-1 situation changes quickly. Click here to view online and for updates.
Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011, and, originally, a controlled reentry was planned. Firing the craft’s engines would have enabled controllers to allow the craft to burn up (mostly) over a large, unpopulated region of the South Pacific ocean. Any surviving pieces would have fallen into the ocean. But, in March 2016, the Tiangong-1 space station ceased functioning. Ground teams lost control of the craft, and it can no longer be commanded to fire its engines. It is, therefore, expected to make an uncontrolled reentry … soon.
The spacecraft’s main body is approximately 34 feet (10.4 meters) long.
ESA has said that Tiangong-1 will “substantially burn up” in Earth’s atmosphere. Will pieces crash to Earth? Possibly. Will they crash in populated areas? It’s not possible to say, but the chances are small that any human being will be harmed, according to a statement from Aerospace, a research organization that advises government and private enterprise on space flight. Aerospace said:
There is a chance that a small amount of Tiangong-1 debris may survive reentry and impact the ground. Should this happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometers in size and centered along a point on the Earth that the station passes over.
Aerospace also warned that the space station might be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive fuel called hydrazine on board.
As of today’s date (March 24, 2018), the spacecraft is at about 134 miles (215 km) altitude. That’s down from 155 miles (258 km) the last time I checked, on March 7. Its orbit is clearly decaying as you can see if you follow the spacecraft’s descent here. The end will come more or less suddenly, due in part to changing conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere, which is why it’s so inherently unpredictable.
Tiangong-1 is not designed to withstand reentry, as some spacecraft are. But it will mostly burn up when it falls, due to the extreme heat and friction generated by its high-speed passage through Earth’s atmosphere.
Tiangong 1 predicted reentry, as of March 6, 2018, via ESA.
Tiangong-1’s major goal was to test and master technologies related to orbital rendezvous and docking. One uncrewed and two crewed missions – executed by the Shenzhou (Divine Craft) spacecraft – took place during its operational lifetime. ESA explained:
Following launch in 2011, the Tiangong-1 orbit began steadily decaying due to the faint, yet not-zero, atmospheric drag present even at 300 or 400 km altitude [~200 to 250 miles altitude]. This affects all satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbit, like the International Space Station, for example.
Bottom line: China’s first space station will soon undergo an uncontrolled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. As of March 22, Aerospace Corporation was predicting April 1 ± 3 days. As of March 23, ESA was predicting March 30 to April 3. At no time will a precise time or location prediction for reentry be possible.
Astronomers found indicator of extraterrestrial life
Astronomers found indicator of extraterrestrial life
First-time discovery of chemical compound Freon-40 in space
Using data captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the ROSINA instrument on ESA’s Rosetta mission, an international team of astronomers has found faint traces of the chemical compound Freon-40 (CH3Cl), an organohalogen, around both an infant star and a comet in our solar system.
This is the first detection ever of a saturated organohalogen in interstellar space.
This result has now been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Freon-40 is formed by organic processes on Earth, so it has been considered as a marker of extraterrestrial life.
But since this is the first ever detection of a saturated organohalogen in interstellar space, it may not be as good marker of life as had been hoped. This discovery of Freon-40 in places that must predate the origin of life can thus be seen as a disappointment.
However, organohalogens may be significant components of the material from which planets form. This result underscores the challenge of finding molecules that could indicate the presence of life beyond Earth.
Exoplanet research has gone beyond the point of finding planets – more than 3,000 exoplanets are now known – to looking for chemical markers that might indicate the potential presence of life. A vital step is determining which molecules could indicate life, but establishing reliable markers remains a tricky process.
Freon-40 is also known as methyl chloride and chloromethane, and was detected around both the infant star system IRAS 16293-2422, about 400 light-years away, and the famous comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G).
Organohalogens consist of halogens such as chlorine and fluorine, bonded with carbon and sometimes other elements. On Earth, methyl chloride is created by biological processes – in organisms ranging from humans to fungi – as well as by industrial processes such as the production of dyes and medical drugs.
‘Finding Freon-40 near these young, Sun-like stars was surprising’, said Edith Fayolle, a researcher with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lead author of the new paper.
‘We did not predict its formation and were surprised to find it in such significant concentrations. It has now become clear that these molecules form readily in stellar nurseries, providing insights into the chemical evolution of planetary systems.’
The discovery of organohalogens in the interstellar medium also tells the researchers something about the starting conditions for organic chemistry on planets. Such chemistry is an important step toward the origins of life.
Organohalogens, the findings suggest, are likely to be a constituent of the so-called ‘primordial soup’ – both on the young Earth and on nascent rocky exoplanets.
Thus, rather than indicating the presence of existing life, organohalogens may be an important element in the little-understood chemistry involved in the origin of life.
Co-author Jes Joergensen from the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen adds: ‘This result shows the power of ALMA to detect molecules of astrobiological interest toward young stars on scales where planets may be forming.
Using ALMA, we have previously found precursors to sugars and amino acids around different stars. The additional discovery of Freon-40 around Comet 67P/C-G strengthens the links between the pre-biological chemistry of distant protostars and our own Solar System.’
Holger Mueller, a spectroscopist at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Physics I and a co-author of the study, says: ‘The identification of molecules in space usually relies on laboratory studies of these molecules.’ He maintains the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy, CDMS, an important repository of data to identify interstellar molecules. He helped to identify the compound’s spectral fingerprints, and thus to verify their occurrences in outer space.
News source:University of Cologne. The content is edited for length and style purposes. Figure legend:This Knowridge.com image is credited to NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team (top image); European Space Agency/Rosetta/Navcam/Science Photo Library (bottom image).
Unknown satellites in the solar system. Are they extraterrestrial? Videos.
Unknown satellites in the solar system. Are they extraterrestrial? Videos.
In our solar system there are many objects such as asteroids, comets or planets that astronomers have documented and described in detail. Of course, there are also satellites and satellites made by humans or larger space debris, such as burned rocket launchers.
In space, however, there are objects that astronomers can not identify, and some even consider them non-Earth satellites. What are they actually?
1. We do not know the celestial body Astronomers in space are constantly searching for unknown asteroids that could also endanger our planet Earth. That is why, in 1999, in the American state of New Mexico, the Linear Satellite project was created, where scientists searched by means of an automatic telescope to search for unknown or unidentified asteroids.
Over the course of this project, they discovered an unknown body with a diameter of 30 to 50 meters, which runs around the Sun on a nearly circular path with a circulation period of 1.09 years. This object, which was named 1999 CG9, is about 158 million kilometers from the Sun, about 9 million kilometers away from our planet Earth. The greatest mystery for astronomers is its atypical orbit, which is almost circular. All other celestial bodies move along the elliptical path.
Brain Marsden of the Harward Smithsonian Center is convinced that due to the size of the object, it can not be the burning degree of a carrier rocket. Therefore, he believes that this object could come from a moon that has a small gravitational force when it was thrown into space in the event of a larger meteorite.
However, a detailed analysis of the composition of the 1999 CG9 satellite would be required to confirm this assumption. Some scientists, however, are skeptical about this, because it would be a really good piece of the Moon that was thrown into the universe, and its circular path, which scientists have not explained yet.
2. Unknown Celestial Body
Even in November 1991, however, astronomers from the Kitt Peak Observatory in the US discovered a body that behaved similarly to the 1999 CG9 object. The Sky & Telescope magazine, which has been named the 1991 VG even referred to as a “true UFO,” because its orbit almost exactly copies the orbit of our blue planet, and it also features light effects.
The biggest mystery for astronomers is the fact that the 1991 VG does not reflect the radar waves at all, which is quite a matter of fact for other cosmic bodies. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of scientists consider the possibility that the natural body would behave as absolutely excluded.
Some scientists think it could be the remains of an earlier probe or rocket, but later it was found that such a orbit does not correspond to the calculated orbit of missiles and satellites so far. At the beginning of December 1991, this body traveled only 450,000 kilometers from the Earth
There is the possibility that this mysterious object is in fact some non-Earth probe or satellite, as was said by Australian astronomer Duncan Steel of the University of Adelaide. Later, however, he took his words back and said he was not convinced that this body was of extraterrestrial origin.
In the summer of 2017, the 1991 VG spacecraft can be seen from the southern hemisphere, and astronomers believe they can identify the satellite that is copying the Earth’s orbit. It will be just one of the burnt levels of the carrier rocket than most scientists think, or it may be a non-Earth probe, which does not exclude British astronomer Duncan Forgan. Let’s surprise you.
NOSTRADAMUS IS QUOTED AS SAYING MANKIND WOULD DISCOVER A MACHINE IN SPACE THAT WAS SENT TO US BY THE WATCHERS! IN 2018-2019!
Four mysterious lights silently hovered over a home in the Fort Worth area, according to a recent MUFON report (case 90965). The witness was not able to take a photo, but shared an artistic depiction of the event along with detailed testimony:
On March 23, 2018 @ 9:30PM, in the country 4 miles NW of Aledo, Texas; 5 miles West of the Joint Reserve Base, Fort Worth,
I was inside walking towards my back glass sliding doors when a group of four very bright lights over my pasture caught my attention.
The lights were so low and bright, my first thought was that a plane was coming down right towards my house.
I was about to yell for my wife to run out the front in case there was a crash, then I realized that the lights were not moving at all.
I heard no noise and would have heard an air craft this close. The lights were so bright that I could not discern the shape of the object. There were 3 lights in a row with the middle slightly lower and one offset and up to the right, as if there was a missing light between them. The object was approximately 200 ft. in the air, 1,500 ft. away, about the size of a half-dollar at arm's length, so it had to be in excess of 40' or more wide.
I watched the object for 30+ seconds and ran to get my cell phone camera in the next room. I was gone less than 15 seconds but when I got back, it was gone (and, very oddly, my cell phone went down, then came back on while I was wondering what happened to it).
I immediately went outside and searched the sky in all directions, no plane, helicopters or anything else was airborne. It is impossible for any typical aircraft to not be still visible in that time. We are in the flight path of Joint Reserve Base air craft and Care Flight Helicopters from Weatherford to Fort Worth daily. This object did not resemble any of those. It is now 2am and I still haven't been able to sleep. This event was so unexpected all I could think to say was Jeez-Louise!
Do you live in the Fort Worth area? Did you also see these creepy lights? Help crack this case and report your sighting!
As well, feel free to share your thoughts on this recent Texas UFO sightings or anything else UFO or alien-related in the comments below, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
What:Fast metallic sphere followed by military plane
According to a NUFORC testimony (case S139229), an unidentified metallic sphere flew at a high rate of speed over Cedar Park. Shortly after the UFO passed, the witness observed what they thought was a military plane flying behind it. A few days later, the Cedar Park resident also noticed some strange helicopters in the area. Could these events be related? As always, you be the judge:
US Air Force plane that witness believed they saw following UFO https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/4149hjpg
High speed metallic sphere shooting across Central Texas skies.
On Friday March 16, 2018, I was walking my dog along the greenbelt on the northern side of Veterans Memorial Park in Cedar Park, Texas. The loop around the park is about 1 1/3 miles total.
An aviation buff and lifelong sky watcher, I noticed a white/silver metallic sphere moving at a high rate of speed tracking roughly south to north at an estimated 10-15,000 above ground level. There was no exhaust or visible means of propulsion in a standard sense.
While holding my dog’s leash I grabbed my mobile phone out of my pocket to attempt to record some video before the sphere would be lost in my line of sight over the tree line.
The video is terrible since I was juggling the dog leash and fighting with the sun glare on my phone. There are only a few frames of the object.
I have seen the same type of sphere moving at a fast speed a few years before, ironically, while walking my dog at the park. It is only because of the following activities that I was prompted to get this event documented.
After losing sight of the object, I continued around the trail, wondering whether what I witnessed was advanced human technology, or something otherworldly.
Minutes later, at approximately 12:07 while walking southbound on the western side of the greenbelt,I heard a low hum and looked left and up. At an altitude of approximately 10,000 feet, I saw what I’m convinced was an Air Force C-17 Globemaster, a huge four engine cargo jet. In nearly four years of living in Central Texas, I’ve never seen one before. It was tracking the same south to north direction of the flying metallic sphere, but approximately two miles east. I could only wonder if the C-17 was tracking the sphere, or it had released the sphere itself in some military test, or if seeing the two in the space of 7 minutes was coincidental.
Two days later, on Sunday March 18, 2018, I was, again, walking my dog around the park. While walking northbound on the east side of the park, I began to hear a low rumble and recognized the sound of military helicopters. Only occasionally do you see any military choppers over Cedar Park, even given that the US Army Base Fort Hood is only 45 air miles away north northeast.
I stopped and looked around for the choppers. This was 11:22 a.m. Central. What I believe were two Apache attack choppers were about one-half mile south from location, and traveling west at approximately 3,000 feet above ground level. They were flying close together with the lead chopper staggered to the left of the other. What happened next made my jaw dropped the lead chopper abruptly jerked the chopper right (north) over roughly the same track the metallic sphere had been flying two days earlier. The lead chopper’s move must have come to a surprise to the back chopper, because there was nearly a mid-air collision. The two choppers continued that course until I lost sight of them because of the tree line. Just as I was getting to my car to load my dog and head home, I heard another low hum at 11:32 a.m. Flying the same course west as the other two choppers was a lone Apache. And it made the same move (but smoother) of heading north along the track of the other choppers and the metallic sphere two days earlier.
I have no idea as to what these events mean. I can only chalk them up to high strangeness at this time
Photo Credit: L Jaramillo and O Macias, Virginia Tech
The Week's Top Space Stories
People around the world remember the life of Stephen Hawking, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is shrinking and turning orange and NASA's twin study with Scott and Mark Kelly confirm some fascinating findings. These are just some of this week's top stories on Space.com..
Photo Credit: The World in HDR/Shutterstock
1. Stephen Hawking, brilliant theoretical physicist, has died
Stephen Hawking, the iconic theoretical physicist, cosmologist and science communicator, died early Wednesday morning (Mar. 14) at the age of 76. Hawking was diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as a 21 year old student at the University of Cambridge. Hawking persevered, and went on to make incredible contributions to modern understandings of physics and astronomy. µ
On Monday (Mar. 12) NASA Acting Chief Robert Lightfoot revealed he would retire from the agency at the end of April. The Senate has not taken measures to confirm the current nominee for the administrator position, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), and it is largely believed by the space industry that it's because he lacks to votes to win the nomination. Bridenstine has been criticized for his lack of a science background, in addition to comments he's made denying climate change and towards the LGBTQ community.
Plans to build an outpost near the moon for astronauts to live, learn and work on the lunar surface are underway. NASA is moving forward with its Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project, whose first component might launch into space as early as 2022. The complex would include airlock capabilities, and would be significantly smaller than the International Space Station.
Photo Credit: A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center)/NASA/ESA
4. Orange is the new color of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
A new study reveals that the iconic Great Red Spot in Jupiter's atmosphere is growing taller as it shrinks. The storm system may also be funneling up particles that make it red, and scientists theorize that the spot is turning orange as a result of this upward movement, when this material gets hit by the sun's ultraviolet radiation and changes into the brighter color.
5. Twin study on space station has results confirmed
Scott Kelly's milestone flight aboard the International Space Station lasted 340 days, and the long-term investigation into human health changes under microgravity conditions recently confirmed findings from 2017. The mission compared space-faring Scott Kelly's health and gene expression with that of his twin brother Mark. The ends of chromosomes typically grow shorter as humans age, but Scott's were confirmed to have extended slightly longer. The NASA Twin Study also revealed long-term changes to Scott's gene expression and a decrease in his cognitive speed upon returning to Earth.
Photo Credit: L Jaramillo and O Macias, Virginia Tech
6. Faraway signal is not coming from dark matter
Ancient stars are actually the source of a mysterious cosmic signal radiating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, not dark matter. According to a new study, the gamma-rays that make up the signal are emanating from a multitude of rapidly spinning neutron stars that are thought to be 10 billion years old, and were interpreted as dark matter because the thousands of signal sources are so far away, the signals seem to come from one spot.
7. Short up-and-down flights may be first BFR tests
At the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that the spaceflight company's new project, the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), could begin testing its components as early as next year. On March 11, Musk spoke in an on-stage interview, sharing that the upper-stage "spaceship" of the rocket is currently being built. The tests would include short up-and-down flights that may happen in the first half of 2019.
8. Lunar birth story supports watery moon findings
Some evidence suggests that water may exist on the moon, and scientists decided to model the creation of the moon and the Earth to see if hydrogen, a component of water, could have survived the temperatures created by the origin event. The team found that the impact theory of lunar creation, in which a massive rock hit proto-Earth and caused material to jet out and eventually collect again as the moon, does support recent findings of higher water content in lunar samples.
Photo Credit: Township of Hamilton Police Department
9. Fireball shoots across Washington
A minivan-sized object zoomed into Earth's atmosphere on Mar. 7, and, after lighting the night sky over the Pacific Northwest, the fireball broke up and crashed into the Pacific Ocean, according to a NASA official. Seismographs and satellites detected this meteor from the Canadian province of Manitoba as well.
10. Researchers model how to blast a dangerous asteroid
A Russian team of researchers found that to successfully obliterate a 650-foot-wide (200 meters) asteroid bound for a collision with Earth, a missile would need the power of a 3-megaton nuclear bomb. They modeled this doomsday scenario with tiny asteroid replicas and laser blasts in order to mimic what a nuclear warhead might do. By detonating inside a crater or a cavity on the asteroid, the destructive power would increase, according to the researchers.
UF-WOAH * Bizarre moment ‘UFOs’ spotted speeding past helicopter as it hovers over crash site helping survivors
UF-WOAH * Bizarre moment ‘UFOs’ spotted speeding past helicopter as it hovers over crash site helping survivors
The silver disc-shaped objects were captured flying off the south-western coast of France
By Aletha Adu
BIZARRE footage captures the two "UFOs" were speeding past a helicopter before hovering over a crash site where survivors were being rescued.
The silver disc-shaped objects were captured flying behind the military chopper by a local news crew off the south-western coast of France.
JASON GLEAVE
Two 'UFOs' were filmed speeding past a helicopter before hovering over a dramatic crash site in southern France, in 2014
The startling footage from February 2014 has only just come to light after Jason featured it in his new book UFO PHOTO, published by Flying Disk Press.
Twelve people were rescued from the 100m cargo ship, named "The Luno", after hitting the sea wall at Anglet, breaking into two pieces.
The ship was carrying fertiliser when its engine failed in the choppy Atlantic ocean.
The Sun Online can now reveal how the UFOs flew in formation close to the chopper as if keeping a watch on the rescue operation.
JASON GLEAVE
Jason Gleave, 46, who has studied the film using the latest computer technology, believes the objects are not drones or seagulls.
The former RAF man said: "Upon analysing the footage the twin objects pass to the rear of the helicopter at high velocity and dangerously close.
JASON GLEAVE
Jason Gleave, 46, who has studied the film believes the objects are not drones or seagulls
"Other theories as to what they could be are possible drones or even birds, but unlikely drones because they would not normally operate in such a close dangerous proximity to the rescue helicopter, due to the volatile unpredictable weather conditions.
"Upon closer analysis of the video frames the two objects stay together in flight, in a tight compact formation not deviating from each other."
Nick Pope, who ran the Ministry of Defence's 'UFO desk' for three years, backed Jason's research.
He said: "Jason has been involved in researching and investigating UFOs and other mysteries (like many experts in this field, he uses the phrase “high strangeness events” to describe a lot of this) for many years, but his particular area of expertise is imagery analysis.
"Jason has skill and experience in carefully examining photos and videos, sorting out the fact from the fiction."
Researcher Graham Hancock coined the phrase, ‘we’re like a species with amnesia,’ and it’s true. Despite the fact that it seems the story of human history is well uncovered, every single year there are new discoveries made that challenge what we once held to be true. In some cases, there are discoveries which are concealed from the general public for various reasons, a great example of that would be the black budget world. There also seems to be amazing discoveries that are completely ignored by mainstream media and most of these discoveries would shake the foundations of human history. Another great example are the bodies recently discovered in Nazca, Peru – three-fingered/towed humanoid beings whose physical anatomy is far different from that of a human. Another example would be the stories regarding intelligent ancient civilizations, like Atlantis, for example, which many scholars now believe to have actually existed.
Out of all the information that’s out there regarding intelligent ancient civilizations, and more, even if just one of these stories are true, it would completely change what we thought we knew about human history and the history of our planet. I believe the story of our past might be different from what seems to be the only two available options, creationism and evolution. There may be a myriad of other factors involved.
These discoveries would also shake the foundations of many people’s belief systems. The human race has been kept from so much information, and forced into a specific worldview that’s designed to benefit the ‘1 percent.’
In today’s day and age, it’s always best to keep an open mind, especially when new information is constantly emerging (for those who are curious enough to actually look) which challenges the old.
Giants?
Did giants once roam the Earth? It’s been in the literature and lore of multiple cultures throughout human history, from the Maya, the global indigenous populations, the Bible and more since what we perceive as the beginning of time. For example, the Bible tells us that when the Gods were on Earth, they were giants.
“This, when you bring up in conversation, normally brings up, you know, laughter and people giggling and thinking your joking, and yet, the Bible is full of references of giants in our history.”
Tellinger is referring to the Nephilim, as referenced in Numbers 13:33 of the Bible: “We saw the Nephilim there (the defendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Again, it’s not just the bible, it’s lore from cultures that pre-dated religion as well as the indigenous.
Tellinger is a renowned author/politician who has made several groundbreaking discoveries regarding lost ancient civilizations that once roamed the Earth. Here’s an article about him, with a picture of him standing next to a giant footprint, almost the size of a full human being.
There are several examples of physical evidence which exists to support the idea that giants once roamed the Earth. For example, stored in the vaults of the medical school at WITS University, Johannesburg, there is part of an upper leg bone with a hip-joint that would have stood approximately 12 feet tall. It’s been there since the early 1960’s, and was found by miners in Northern Namibia. It is one of the most precious and rare specimens available today that clearly indicate the existence of giants in Southern Africa more than 40,000 years ago.
Apparently, in 1883 the Smithsonian, a United States government/military led organization at the time, sent a team of archaeologists to South Charleston Mound. According to the official report, the team discovered a number of giant skeletons ranging from 7 to 9 feet tall. Some of them had a “compressed or flat-head type” which would resemble similar skeletal characteristics to those found in Egypt and South America (source).
Whether or not this is ‘fake news’ is highly debatable, as there is a lot of evidence to suggest it’s not.
The list goes on and on, and what’s interesting is an article published in the New York Times in 1902 that also deals with the subject.
The article goes on to describe two stones with “curious inscriptions” and underneath were the bones of a body that “could not have been less than 12 feet in length.” According to the NY Times article, “the men who opened the grave say that the forearm was 4 feet long and that in a well-preserved jaw the lower teeth ranged from the size of a hickory nut to that of the largest walnut in size .”
Apparently the chest of the body had a circumference of 7 feet.
The bodies were first discovered by Luciana Quintana, it was on his ranch these specific bodies were found, according to the article, “Quintana, who has uncovered many other burial places, expresses the opinion that perhaps thousands of skeletons of a race of giants long extinct will be found. This supposition is based on the traditions handed down from the early Spanish invasion that have detailed knowledge of the existence of a race of giants that inhabited the plains of what now is Eastern New Mexico. Indian legends and carvings also in the same section indicate the existence of such a race.”
Here’s another New York Times article about skeletons that were discovered in 1885.
Going back further still, in 1774 settlers found what they called “The Giant Town,” which housed several gigantic skeletons, one being an eight foot tall male. (source)
“In addition to the human skeletons found in NY State, there is also the famous case of ‘The Cardiff Giant,’ a white alabaster-like statue of an 11-foot man who showed an exposed penis and hieroglyphic inscriptions. This statue caused a worldwide sensation and was exhibited in New York City to thousands of paying customers before it was declared a fake by the NY newspapers, despite the fact that scholars from Harvard and elsewhere insisted that the statue was genuine.”
– Richard Dewhurst
Dewhurst is an Emmy Award – winning writer. He’s a graduate of NYU with degrees in journalism, film, and television, he has written and edited for the History Channel, the Arts & Entertainment Channel, PBS, Fox Television and Fox Films, ABC News, TNT, Paramount Pictures, and the Miami Herald. He himself, is well research and you can read his article on the topic here: “The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America“
The Story of Human History
As mentioned earlier, we don’t really know the full story of human history, and when new evidence and information pops up, either from the past or today, which challenges the current accepted framework, it seems like people lose their minds. What we have today, in large part, is dogma, instead of actual fact. With all of the discoveries being made, and all the discoveries that have been made which mainstream media completely ignores, we are clearly not being told something about the true origins of humanity. The idea that a powerful group of people protecting their interests by suppressing information in multiple fields is unsettling. For a plant and its people to thrive, it must live in complete transparency.
Spanjaarden hadden gedetailleerde kennis over reuzenras in New Mexico. Waarom leren we hier niets over op school?
Spanjaarden hadden gedetailleerde kennis over reuzenras in New Mexico. Waarom leren we hier niets over op school?
Als we oude krantenberichten mogen geloven liepen er ooit reuzen op aarde. Neem nu een artikel dat op 11 februari 1902 is gepubliceerd in de New York Times.
In het artikel staat dat resten van een reuzenras zijn ontdekt in Guadalupe in New Mexico en dat archeologen zich voorbereidden op een expeditie om de regio te verkennen.
In de buurt van Mesa Rico, op ruim 300 kilometer ten zuidoosten van Las Vegas, waren graven ontdekt met daarin ‘enorme skeletten’.
Tanden zo groot als walnoten
De begraafplaats werd ontdekt op het erf van Luiciana Quintana, die op enkele vreemde grafstenen was gestuit.
In de ondiepe graven werden skeletten gevonden die minstens 3,6 meter lang waren. De mannen die de graven hadden geopend zeiden dat één van de onderarmen alleen al 1,2 meter lang was.
In een goed bewaard gebleven onderkaak zaten tanden zo groot als walnoten, zeiden ze.
De borstkas had naar verluidt een omtrek van 2,1 meter.
Uitgestorven reuzenras
Quintana, die nog veel meer begraafplaatsen had gevonden, was van mening dat de skeletten toebehoorden een uitgestorven reuzenras.
De Spanjaarden hadden namelijk na de invasie al gedetailleerde kennis opgedaan over een reuzenras dat in het oosten van New Mexico leefde, aldus de krant.
Rotstekeningen
Ook rotstekeningen van indianen wijzen op het bestaan van zo’n ras.
Kranten stonden indertijd vol met dit soort berichten. Hier is nog een ander artikel over reuzen te lezen in de New York Times.
Twin sisters saw a giant cigar-shaped UFO. It had a row of rectangular windows. Small lights were flying in and out of the large object. The UFO appeared to descent or disappear behind a mountain, or into the ground. Missing time occurred.
A mysterious celestial object known as Tabby’s Star has baffled astronomers for years since it was first observed.
Every so often, the star experiences dramatic ‘dips’ in brightness – but, it’s unclear what exactly is causing the phenomenon.
It has sparked countless possible explanations, from claims of an ‘alien megastructure’ to the more mundane hypothesis that now leads the discussion, which says its light is simply being blocked by dust.
Now, a team monitoring Tabby’s Star says it has dimmed to the lowest levels seen since in five years, offering a new opportunity for scientists to observe the bizarre behaviour.
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While the stars of most exoplanet systems are seen to dim by a few per cent, KIC 8462852 (artist's impression) dimmed by more than 20 per cent over periods of months. The mysterious celestial object known as Tabby’s Star has baffled astronomers for years. (artist's impression)
Tabetha Boyajian, the astrophysicist for whom the star is nicknamed, said the most recent dipping event began last Friday.
‘Here we go again! Yippee!!’ the expert tweeted this week.
In a blog post about the activity, Boyajian explains this is the most dramatic fluctuation seen in years.
‘On Friday (2018 March 16) we noted the last data taken were significantly down compared to normal,’ the researcher wrote.
‘Due to poor weather conditions at all 3 sites we weren’t able to observe the star again until last night.
‘This is the deepest dip we have observed since the Kepler Mission in 2013! WOW!!!’
In an update yesterday, Boyajian revealed the star is still ‘not quite back up to normal’ brightness.
Tabby's Star, known officially as KIC 8462852 but named for Tabetha Boyajian who first discovered it in 2015, has baffled experts for years.
While the stars of most exoplanet systems are seen to dim by a few per cent, KIC 8462852 dimmed by more than 20 per cent over periods of months.
But, scientists may finally be closer to solving the mystery.
Tabetha Boyajian, the astrophysicist for whom the star is nicknamed, said the most recent dipping event began last Friday. In a blog post about the activity, Boyajian explains this is the most dramatic fluctuation seen in years. It is plotted above, compared to past events
WHAT IS TABBY'S STAR?
Tabby's Star, known officially as KIC 8462852 but named for Tabetha Boyajian who first discovered it in 2015, has baffled experts ever since.
Observations revealed its light dimmed regularly, as do distant stars when their planets pass in front of them.
But while the stars of most exoplanet systems are seen to dim by a few per cent, KIC 8462852 dimmed by more than 20 per cent over periods of months.
Previous studies have claimed the strange dimming could be evidence of a Dyson Sphere (artist's impression pictured)
Some have claimed this dimming could be evidence of a Dyson Sphere – a hypothetical structure which could be used by an advanced alien race to harness the energy of a star.
But now, scientists say the real cause of the dimming seen at Tabby’s Star may be far more mundane.
Experts believe dust is why it appears to dim and brighten as different colours of light are blocked by different intensities.
Previous studies have claimed the strange dimming could be evidence of a Dyson Sphere – a hypothetical structure which could be used by an advanced alien race to harness the energy of a star.
The mystery of Tabby's Star is so compelling that more than 1,700 people donated over $100,000 (£73,800) through a Kickstarter campaign in support of dedicated ground-based telescope with the aim of observing and gathering more data on the star.
As a result, a new body of data has been collected by Dr Boyajia and colleagues from the Lousisiana State University Department of Physics & Astronomy in partnership with the Las Cumbres Observatory.
'Dust is most likely the reason why the star's light appears to dim and brighten', said Dr Boyajian.
Scientists closely observed the star through the Las Cumbres Observatory from March 2016 to December 2017 (artist's impression)
The new data show that different colours of light are being blocked at different intensities', she said.
'Therefore, whatever is passing between us and the star is not opaque, as would be expected from a planet or alien megastructure,' Dr Boyajian said.
Scientists closely observed the star through the Las Cumbres Observatory from March 2016 to December 2017.
Beginning in May 2017 there were four distinct episodes when the star's light dipped.
Supporters from the crowdfunding campaign nominated and voted to name these episodes.
The first two dips were named Elsie and Celeste. The last two were named after ancient lost cities - Scotland's Scara Brae and Cambodia's Angkor.
It has baffled astronomers since it was first discovered in 2015, but now experts believe they may be one step closer to solving the mystery of Tabby's star (artist's impression pictured)
The authors write that in many ways what is happening with the star is like these lost cities.
'They're ancient; we are watching things that happened more than 1,000 years ago', the authors wrote in the paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
'They're almost certainly caused by something ordinary, at least on a cosmic scale.
'And yet that makes them more interesting, not less,' the authors wrote. 'But most of all, they're mysterious.'
WHAT IS A DYSON SPHERE?
An artist's impression of a Dyson Sphere is shown
A suggested method for harnessing the power of an entire star is known as a Dyson sphere.
First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, this would be a swarm of satellites that surrounds a star.
They could be an enclosed shell, or spacecraft spread out to gather its energy - known as a Dyson swarm.
If such structures do exist, they would emit huge amounts of noticeable infrared radiation back on Earth.
But as of yet, such a structure has not been detected.
Another team of researchers from the University of Arizona, Tuscan, found similar results in a study released in October.
Researchers collected observational data of Tabby's star from two Nasa telescopes – Swift, which takes X-ray and UV measurements, and Spitzer, which measures objects in infrared.
They found that from UV, throughout the visible spectrum to IR, the star is dimming at every wavelength.
The researchers also discovered that the dimming rate of Tabby's star differed between UV and infrared.
The team suggested that 'micro-sized dust screens' are to blame for this irregular dimming, and not an alien megastructure.
Ster met ‘buitenaardse megastructuur’ vertoont diepste dip in vijf jaar. Sterrenkundigen staan voor een raadsel
Ster met ‘buitenaardse megastructuur’ vertoont diepste dip in vijf jaar. Sterrenkundigen staan voor een raadsel
Tabby’s ster stelt astronomen al jaren voor een raadsel. Eens in de zoveel tijd vertoont deze ster helderheidsdipjes, maar het is onduidelijk wat de oorzaak is van dit fenomeen.
Mogelijke verklaringen variëren van een ‘buitenaardse megastructuur’ tot stof afkomstig van kometen.
Een team dat Tabby’s ster in de gaten houdt laat nu weten dat de ster sinds 2013 niet zo zwak is geweest als nu.
Diepste dip
Astrofysicus Tabetha Boyajian, naar wie de ster is vernoemd, zei dat het hemellichaam vorige week vrijdag begon af te zwakken. “Daar gaan we weer!” tweette ze.
Ze sprak van de meest drastische fluctuatie in jaren. “Op vrijdag zagen we dat de ster veel zwakker was dan normaal,” schreef ze.
“Dit is de diepste dip die we sinds de Kepler-missie in 2013 hebben gezien!” voegde ze toe.
Vreemde gedrag
Tabby’s ster, die eigenlijk KIC 8462852 heet, scheen binnen enkele maanden 20 procent zwakker. De meeste sterren worden slechts een paar procent zwakker.
Volgens eerdere studies kan het vreemde gedrag van de ster worden verklaard door een Dysonbol, een structuur die door een buitenaards ras kan worden gebruikt om energie op te wekken.
Astronomen vermoeden echter dat kosmisch stof ervoor zorgt dat de ster af en toe zwakker wordt.
Space Invaders: WATCH Alleged UFO Battle Near US' Classified Area 51
Space Invaders: WATCH Alleged UFO Battle Near US' Classified Area 51
Describing a recent incident in the skies above Nevada's second-largest city of Henderson, an eyewitness referred to the emergence of up to ten bright dots which looked like stars and which started to attack each other.
A video of what looked like a "battle" between unidentified flying objects (UFO) has emerged in the Internet, prompting users to scratch their heads.
The incident took place on February 19, when a driver in Nevada's second-largest city Henderson was in his car for "just a short drive from Las Vegas", according to the Daily Express.
"I was waiting in the car while my buddy went into the store. I noticed about 9 to 10 bright dots in the sky that looked like stars. The dots were in a line at approximately a 45 degree angle. All of a sudden they started to move upward on that same angle and it looked like they were attacking each other," the eyewitness said.
Citing "many bursts of energy", he said that the incident, which took place not far from the notorious Area 51, lasted just 20 seconds.
Commenting on the video, some users called the incident an authentic UFO battle, while others claimed that all this was nothing but "the reflection of cars' lights."
"If they were shooting lasers like that, something would have clearly been destroyed. I believe in UFOs but not this!" user Carlos Urquides added.
Area 51 is a highly classified US Air Force base is located within the Nevada Test and Training Range.
It continues to add substantially to the spread of numerous UFO legends, including that of the Roswell incident in 1947, when a US Air Force balloon crashed at a ranch in New Mexico.
The US military insisted that it was just a conventional weather balloon, while ufologists claimed in the 1970s that it was a crash of one or more alien spacecraft.
Vreemd tafereel waargenomen in de omgeving van Area 51. Zijn dit UFO’s die elkaar aanvallen?
Vreemd tafereel waargenomen in de omgeving van Area 51. Zijn dit UFO’s die elkaar aanvallen?
In de lucht boven de stad Henderson in de Amerikaanse staat Nevada zijn een aantal UFO’s waargenomen die elkaar leken aan te vallen.
Een filmpje van de onbekende vliegende objecten is al bijna een half miljoen keer bekeken.
De bollen zijn op 19 februari jongstleden vastgelegd door iemand die op weg was naar Las Vegas, schrijft persbureau Sputik.
Sterren
“Ik zat in de auto toen ik negen of 10 heldere stippen in de lucht zag die op sterren leken,” zei de man.
“Plotseling bewogen ze naar boven en het leek alsof ze elkaar aanvielen,” voegde hij toe. Het hele voorval duurde volgens hem slechts 20 seconden.
De stad Henderson bevindt zich niet ver van de beruchte basis Area 51, aldus het persbureau.
Bewijs
Sommigen zien de beelden als bewijs voor UFO’s, terwijl anderen claimden dat het slechts reflecties waren van de autolampen.
“Als dat laserstralen waren, zou er iets moeten zijn vernietigd,” reageerde Carlos Urquides. “Ik geloof in UFO’s, maar niet hierin!”
Roswellincident
Area 51 is een geheime Amerikaanse vliegbasis die is gelegen in de Nevada Test and Training Range.
Er gaan geruchten dat er UFO’s en zelfs aliens worden bewaard. Volgens het leger worden er alleen experimentele vliegtuigen getest.
De basis is al vaak in verband gebracht met het Roswellincident. Hoewel het leger claimt dat er in 1947 een weerballon is neergekomen bij het plaatsje, zeggen ufologen dat er een buitenaards schip is gecrasht.
Large Structures In The Clouds At 10,000 Feet High?
Large Structures In The Clouds At 10,000 Feet High?
Airplane passenger states: On February 18, 2018 I was on a flight heading towards ft Lauderdale near Louisiana and when flying over the Gulf I saw something interesting after one and half hours into flight at an altitude of about 39,000 ft.
The pilot told me that the clouds below us in the plane are 6-10 thousand high up.
So here what’s weird, I saw some sort of large structures with giant antenna or smoke stacks, something large enough to be making the clouds look like a wake from a boat in going through them.
At first I thought the structures are oil platforms but these platforms are only 200-400 ft above sea level but I could see oil platforms further on in my trip and they were tiny in comparison. So I'm ruling that explanation out
If we know that the tallest man-made structure is the 2,717 feet Burj Khalifia tower in Dubai then I wonder what are these extremely tall structures above the Gulf, massive enough to make large wakes in the cloud patterns? Mufon case 90956.
Golden UFO Disk Near International Space Station Caught On Live Cam, March 24, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Golden UFO Disk Near International Space Station Caught On Live Cam, March 24, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 24, 2018
Location of sighting:Earths Orbit, at space station on live cam
This alien disk was seen near the space station today. I was looking at the live cams and was lucky enough to capture this craft. As I saw the craft coming into focus, NASA apparently noticed it too and turned the live cam to blue screen in order to hide it. Clearly they were a little slow, and most likely messing around on their cell phone and didn't notice the UFO until it was too late. It just goes to show what you can accomplish if you only believe and try.
UFO INVASION: What is this mysterious alien DEATH CLOUD choking out the sky?
UFO INVASION: What is this mysterious alien DEATH CLOUD choking out the sky?
FEARS of alien invaders spraying poisonous chemicals in the sky were triggered after a mysterious cloud of brown gas appeared in the skies out of nowhere.
An unidentified object releasing a thick cover of dark brown smoke was seen over the skies of Switzerland.
The arrival of the mysterious object, potentially of alien origin, was photographed leaving a long trail of brown gas over Littau in Lucerne, Switzerland.
UFO observers who have seen the staggering footage of the ‘death cloud’ are stumped as to the origin of the smoke.
According to local media reports, the young woman who witnessed the object in person, saw the UFO from her kitchen window in the late revving hours.
But the young woman, who has not been named, said the object did not fly through the sky.
Instead the witness said she picked up her camera to film the object as it motionlessly chugged out the smoke before vanishing into the sky.
She told 20 Minuten: “The object with the tail just stood in the sky and it did not move for two or three minutes.”
The object then rapidly reared back into life and “turned to the right and disappeared” the witness recounted.
20 MINUTEN
UFO EVIDENCE? Is this choking cloud of thick smoke from alien spacecraft
Several minutes later the alien cloud was back and eerily repeated the same movements.
The witness said: “But this time the phenomenon was not as long as the first time.”
The woman who lives on Benneneggstrasse in Littau, said the mysterious object then took off towards Neuenkirch.
She added: “I have no idea of the distance.”
However despite the mind-boggling nature of what she saw, the woman did not think she witnessed an alien UFO invasion.
Despite the mind-boggling nature of the bizarre object, the witness did not think she saw the hallmarks of an alien invasion and instead tried to rationalise it.
Initially she assumed it may have been a streaking meteorite, but was puzzled by the object remaining motionless.
However experts at Skyguide, Switzerland’s leading air navigation service and airspace monitor, has since confirmed the object was indeed a UFO – an unidentified flying object.
20 MINUTEN
UFO sighting: The alleged alien cloud was spotted over Switzerland
Press spokesman Vladi Barrosa who saw the incredible pictures, confirmed that for the time being, Skyguide is treating the object as a UFO but not necessarily as a flying saucer.
The object with the tail just stood in the sky and it did not move for two or three minutes
Alleged UFO witness
Mr Barrosa said: “In technical jargon, this is a UFO, so to the present state of knowledge it is an unidentified flying object.”
He added: “We always get such pictures sent. In general, we can answer what's on it.
“If we have date and time of day, we can use radar images to find out what was in the sky at a certain point in time.”
20 MINUTEN
UFO identified: Skyguide officials are treating it as an unidentified flying object
As a general rule of thumb, the company treats any such UFO sightings as planes.
Mr Barossa underlined that given time a simple enough explanation will emerge.
Some online UFO hunters who analysed the startling pictures suggested the streaking cloud could have come from an erupting airplane engine.
Other simply suggested it was an airplane contrail tinted a dirty brown by the sunset.
TWITTER
UFO hoax? Alien sceptics believe it is airplane contrails during sunset
In fact on March 14 when the pictures were taken, the sun set over Switzerland just after 6.30pm local time – shortly before the alleged UFO was spotted.
But not everyone was convicted by the plausible suggestions.
Redditor Hiking425 speculated: “The described behaviour could be for a secret test aircraft.
“Unfortunately no one has told me what all the secret aircraft around the world can do.
“If intelligent extraterrestrial were able to develop that kind of technology it seems plausible humans would be able to figure it out eventually.”
Hi, this is Eric Benson from New York Magazine. Hi, Eric. Why do you want to talk to me?
Well, because of the New York Times article and the program that you helped bring about. Well, I’m happy to talk to you. Just let me preface this by saying this, if we’re here to talk about little green men or stuff that you want to look at that was found in New Mexico or something, I’m not interested. If you’re here to talk about science, I’m happy to do that. I’m really glad to do that. I’m glad somebody is interested, because it’s a subject that is being terribly neglected, so I’m happy to talk to you.
Great. Well, I don’t want to talk to you about little green men. Okay.
One thing I am curious about, though, is just where your interest in this subject comes from. That’s pretty easy. When I first got out of law school many, many years ago, in the mid-’60s, I worked with three other lawyers. A big case we had was a case involving a bunch of rich Las Vegas businessmen. They went into L.A. International Airport, tried to take off, and the plane crashed and killed them all. It was a very interesting case. It went to Supreme Court, a mistrial declared, hung jury, went on for years.
One of the people who was killed in that plane crash was a guy by the name of Bigelow. He was not as wealthy, but he was a wealthy man in Las Vegas who ran a carpet company, Bigelow Carpet. His son was 18 years old when that crash occurred. He’s a central figure in all this. I didn’t know him, but when he was a young man, he heard a story from his grandparents about driving down from Mt. Charleston — that’s a 12,000-foot mountain just ten miles out of Las Vegas — where they saw something in the air. This so-called flying saucer, for lack of a better description. It piqued his curiosity.
He became a very wealthy man. I mean extremely wealthy. During the time that he had some money, he said, “I would like to know more about this.” He would have, several times a year, at his big office here in Las Vegas — knew how to make money buying and selling real estate. He would pay for these seminars, these conferences, and he would bring in scientists, academics, and a few nut cases. That’s a bad way of talking about some people, but, you know — people who were really, in my opinion, kind of on the fringes.
Probably the No. 1 TV journalist in Nevada was a guy by the name of George Knapp. He and I were friends. He had known me for years. He said to me one day, “Hey, I know this guy Bigelow, he’s interested in a subject, I don’t know if you have any interest in it all, but you should get to know him. He’s got a lot of money. He’s kind of an interesting guy. I’ll introduce you. You’ll go to one of those little deals and spend a few hours with him.”
I did that. It was really fascinating quite frankly because there were people trying to figure out what all this aerial phenomenon was. Bigelow knew I was interested.
I’ve always been a voracious reader. I blinded myself in one eye — I used to read really, really fast, and I can still read fairly fast with only one eye; not nearly as fast as I used to. Just a little side note: I took the Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics course here in Las Vegas, and I was told I was the fastest reader they ever had in Nevada. I can read so fast.
How fast are you? Is there a number that represents — I don’t know. I don’t know. But anyway, to make a long story short, he started sending me tons of stuff. I mean tons of stuff. I read it. A lot of it was nothing that interested me. It was, they reexamined and examined and reexamined the crash in New Mexico that happened down there that everybody knows about that knows anything about this subject. It was repetitive, and I didn’t care. But there was some stuff that interested me. Mainly what interested me is so many people had seen these strange things in the air. That was interesting to me.
I’m in the Senate now and one day was joined by John Glenn, who I thought was just such a wonderful human being. I said to John, “Hey John, I’ve been reading all this stuff, do you have any interest in it?” He said, “I’ve always had an interest in it.” You get the picture so far, right?
Yeah. I’m in Washington in the Senate and Bob Bigelow called me — I kept in touch with him over the years. He called me and he said, “I got the strangest letter here. Could I have a courier bring it to you?” I said, “Sure.” He didn’t want to send it to me over the lines for obvious reasons.
I read the letter. The letter was from a federal national-security agency. Okay? The letter said, “I am a senior, longtime member of this security agency, and I have a Ph.D.” — I can’t remember in what, in physics for sure, maybe math also. “And,” the letter said, “I’m interested. I’m interested in talking to you, Mr. Bigelow. I have an interest in what you’ve been working on. I want to go to your ranch in Utah.”
Bigelow had bought a great big ranch, a 70-, 100-acre ranch in Utah that was in a basin for more than a century.
Was that the Skinwalker Ranch? Yeah, that’s it. I called Bigelow back and said, “Hey, I’ll meet with the guy.” I called the guy. He said, “I don’t want to meet at my office, I don’t want to meet at your office. Where can we meet?” I said, “Come to my home.” The two of us met and I was terribly impressed with him. Very low-key scientist. He told me of his interest. I called Bigelow and I said, “This guy, I’ve checked him out and he seems like a pretty nice guy and his credentials are as he says.”
He went, met Bigelow, and after I don’t know how much time went by, he came to me and said, “Something should be done about this. Somebody should study it.” I was convinced he was right. I said, “Well, if you were me, what would you say to people in power in the United States Senate who have huge control over the spending of defense money?” And here’s what he said: “What I will do is prepare something for you that anyone can look at it that wants to, it’s strictly science.” He put it in scientific language — what the study should consist of.
I, at the time, was the leader of the Senate, and I called two of my friends who for many, many years were like brothers. One a Democrat, one a Republican. They controlled for quite a number of years the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. It was Stevens and Inouye.
As I said in the New York Times article, it was the easiest meeting I ever had. I walked in and I knew so much and Ted Stevens interrupted me and said, “I’ve heard enough.” He said, “Since I was a pilot in World War II, I’ve been tremendously curious, concerned about stuff that we don’t know anything about.” He said, “I was in my airplane alone and off to my left was an object. I could see it. It was so close to me. I would veer up, down, sideways. Wherever I went, it was there. I was starting to get low on fuel, went and landed, and went to the air-traffic controller. I said, ‘Was there anybody up in the air with me?’ The guy said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’”
That’s why it was an easy sell for him. He, Ted Stevens, when he was in the military, didn’t go to his superior and say, “I saw the damnedest thing in the air.” Why? Because the work we did, pilots would almost refuse to report this stuff. Why? Because it would hurt them in their promotions and make them look like goofballs.
What we decided to do — it would be black money, we wouldn’t have a big debate on the Senate floor over it. They would put in their defense appropriation bill, 11 million bucks. The purpose of it was to study aerial phenomena. The money was given, a directive was given to the Pentagon, to put this out to bid, which they did.
People may be inquisitive: “How did Bigelow win that bid? Why?” Because he had spent his own money first. For two years, the federal government helped him. Thousands of pages were gathered, just like I told you, of things that had happened. There was no central location where all this stuff was gathered — that’s what he did. He built his building for it. For two years, when we got financial help — but there was a change in leadership and it didn’t work. So the federal government dropped out of the project.
As you’ve heard from a few people since this story came out, Luis Elizondo, for example, he quit, because they wouldn’t do anything seriously. He was terribly interested in this. They’re all mad because the federal government has done nothing. The guy that came to me, his job was in jeopardy because he tried to do something he felt was appropriate. He said to me first time we met, “I don’t know why we’re not doing anything.” He said, “I’ll bet the Chinese are.” He said, “I’ll bet the Russians are. I’ll bet the Japanese are. Why aren’t we doing anything?”
That’s the story. You’ve got in a nutshell, that’s how I got involved in this.
Great. I’m curious: Before you met Bigelow and went to his conferences, probably in the 1990s, were you a science buff? Were you just interested in things like space and aeronautics? Zero. I’ll give you a couple of facts to support that. I took a math class in high school, geometry. I had to go beg the teacher to give me a D so I could play football. That’s not my strong suit, math and science. But that doesn’t take away the fact that I’m terribly interested. Some of my friends were really interested in science fiction. It bores me. I was never interested in it. Just didn’t care.
Not even the Mercury program, Apollo program? Was that something — Zero. I mean I read the news. I saw it. That was nice, but it never piqued my curiosity about how they got a rocket into space, that kind of stuff. That was never my interest.
After it became something you were interested in and you got to Congress and the Senate, was it something you discussed with other members, other than Senator Glenn? No, no, no. Because, Eric, you have to understand, this is a subject people are interested in, but they’re all … how to say this … they’re all afraid of the issue just like the pilots who won’t report these strange things. They’re afraid somebody will think they’re some kind of a wacko. With me, everybody always knew I was a wacko anyway. I didn’t care. I felt everybody knew who I was and it was something I was interested in. If you, or members of the press, want to criticize me, I didn’t care. I found this true because I felt I was doing something for our country.
What was different about talking with Senator Glenn about it? Hey, listen, this is an ace in World War II and Korea. He’d already been into space, was a wonderful human being. I just cared so much about him. He was truly an American hero.
I traveled with him when I was a relatively new senator. Take, for example, we had to go over the Iron Curtain to Czechoslovakia, and the train stops at the border, and we get out of the train, the whole delegation. They have dogs, and they search us. With Glenn, two of the Russians, or they were Czechs or whatever they were, asked if they could have his autograph. He was a world-famous man.
I felt totally at ease, and he was interested. Did he say to me, “Let’s sit down sometime and have a long talk about this?” Neither of us had time to do that. But he was interested, and that was good enough for me. It helped me not feel like I was some kind of a goofball.
Yeah. Did he recount anything from his astronaut career? No, he did not go into detail like Stevens did.
You know something interesting? Here in Las Vegas is an Air Force pilot — Joe Biden mentions him in his book, his name is Flynn. He was a colonel in the Air Force. I had gotten to know him. He’s a super-nice guy. I said, “Hey, you ever seen any of these things?” He said, “Of course.” You know, people just don’t talk about them.
I read somewhere, and I don’t know if this is really true at all, that you talked to President Clinton about aerial phenomenon and UFOs during his presidency. Yes, I did. I did do that. Of course, you could talk to Bill Clinton about oranges. He had such an overwhelming curiosity that he would talk to you about oranges. This was a very passing conversation, but he was interested, of course. That’s just who he was. As you know, one of his No. 1 staffers, John Podesta, who worked for him at Walmart, has publicly supported all this stuff.
Have you talked with John Podesta about this? Oh sure, he’s called me. Of course he has. He’s glad I did it.
Yeah. Just since the Times article publicized it, or was this something you talked about before? We had talked about it before.
Why, if you want these things to be more public and more accepted now, why did you feel the need [for it] to be kept secret then? Because I wanted to get something done. I didn’t want a debate that no one knew what the hell they were talking about on the Senate floor.
Makes sense. When the program was running, was this something that you would be briefed on frequently? Were you briefed on it ever? No, I left everybody alone. Nope.
You were never briefed? That’s not my style, nope.
You just weren’t, in terms of reading the reports that they compiled or visiting the facilities? Let me give you something that the press has totally failed and conjured. We have hundreds and hundreds of papers, pages of paper, that have been available since this was completed. Most all of it, 80 percent at least, is public. You know something? The press has never even looked at it. Not once. That’s where we are. I wanted it public, it was made public, and you guys have not even looked at it.
So, in short, it’s my belief you guys kind of want to be spoon-fed. You don’t want to do any work on your own. I’ve been around you guys my whole adult life, and on something this big, it’s too bad that the press has been so hammered and don’t have the staff they once had that somebody can be assigned to this. If they give you six months to work this, come back with some work on it. Nobody does anymore. They don’t have the resources, I think.
If the press did read those reports … Let me put it this way, I saw you tweeted “we don’t know the answers but we have plenty of evidence to support asking the questions.” To you, what’s the most compelling evidence to support asking a question? Read the reports. Read the reports. We have hundreds. Eric; two, three weeks ago, maybe a month now, up in Montana, they had another strange deal at a missile base up there. It goes on all the time.
The sightings, those — There are reports that are in writing that talk about all of this.
Do you know things about this program that you can’t discuss publicly? Yeah, but there’s plenty that can be discussed publicly, and I’ve tried to do that. I’m interested only in research. I’m interested in science, and in helping the American public understand what the hell is going on. You know at this stage in the reports, we have thousands of people who have seen this stuff. Not hundreds — thousands.
*A version of this article appears in the March 19, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!
The footage, taken in 2016, has been uploaded to YouTube where it has so far been viewed 27,000 times.
Excited viewers speculated over what the aircaft could be.
One said: 'It's two planes travelling at different altitudes, one creating a vapour trail.'
The UFO then speeds ahead of the flight - ruling out it being a helicopter
The person who took the footage claims there are rumours military aircraft fly in these skies
The footage, taken in 2016, has been uploaded to YouTube where it has so far been viewed 27,000 times
Another user wrote: 'I am actually baffled. This looks legit, as to why - who knows.'
While one viewer is convinced the object was extraterrestrial.
They said: 'I was very excited and anxious.
'I felt I had witnessed something very hard to dismiss as a "weather balloon" or some obvious type of aircraft.
'Shortly after the jet and object left my range of sight I saw three more jets and 1 helicopter going the same direction (in my opinion chasing the UFO).'
ERICH VON DÄNIKEN SAYS HE BELIEVES EZEKIEL WAS DESCRIBING UFOS IN THE BIBLE
ERICH VON DÄNIKEN SAYS HE BELIEVES EZEKIEL WAS DESCRIBING UFOS IN THE BIBLE
By: Gaia Staff
Of the many accounts in the Bible of strange happenings and otherworldly occurrences, the story of Ezekiel is one of the more fascinating, especially when looked at through the lens of modern technology. When biblical texts are interpreted through this perspective in general, an interesting picture emerges of the possibility that our ancient ancestors were actually visited by an advanced race, rather than gods. This idea, known as the ancient astronaut theory, sees Ezekiel’s “vision” of the Merkabah, or wheeled chariot, as more likely to be a spaceship or space shuttle used by an advanced species to reach out to humans.
Erich von Däniken is one of the biggest proponents of this theory, providing a very compelling argument for an alternative interpretation of the Book of Ezekiel. So, compelling that his theory even reversed the entire thesis of a NASA scientist’s book aimed at disproving his claim.
ALIENS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
ERICH VON DÄNIKEN’S CHARIOTS OF THE GODS
In the 1970s, Erich von Däniken was invited to a secret speech at NASA where he met Josef F. Blumrich. The two spoke about von Däniken’s ancient astronaut theory from his book, Chariots of the Gods, notably the idea that Ezekiel’s vision was that of a space shuttle, rather than a divine chariot. This conversation led Blumrich on a mission to disprove von Däniken’s seemingly absurd theory, so he did some research of his own and started writing a book. However, the evidence was overwhelming and Blumrich had an epiphany. Ezekiel was undoubtedly describing an advanced spacecraft. Blumrich even used Ezekiel’s description of the craft to patent his own version of an omnidirectional wheel.
THE ANCIENT ASTRONAUT THEORY
Ezekiel is a key figure in Judaism and is also prominent in other Abrahamic biblical texts. Ezekiel was brought to Babylon in the first captivity of Israel and is described as a prophet. One of the interesting characteristics of The Book of Ezekiel as a biblical text is that it is written using the pronoun, I, clearly showing it being written by Ezekiel himself as a first-person account, unlike many biblical texts written in the third person. This seems to lend a little more credit and personality to the story as it is told shortly after its occurrence.
Ezekiel describes seeing a wheeled chariot descend toward him from the sky, piloted by beings with the “likeness of a man.” While many biblical versions of the story describe this being on the chariot as God, von Däniken points out that the original Hebrew version never mentions God, this word was added later.
Ezekiel’s description of the wheeled chariot landing sounds much like that of the landing of a spacecraft. The windstorm, flash of lightning, and brilliant lights are reminiscent of a spacecraft coming down for a landing and kicking up dirt in a spectacle never before seen by someone of such a primitive era. Ezekiel even describes the fire powering the chariot as appearing as ‘glowing metal.’
“4I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal,5 and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human,6 but each of them had four faces and four wings.7 Their legs were straight; their feet were like those of a calf and gleamed like burnished bronze.8 Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. All four of them had faces and wings,9 and the wings of one touched the wings of another. Each one went straight ahead; they did not turn as they moved.”– Ezekiel 1
There is clearly some discrepancy between this description and much of the way Ezekiel’s vision is portrayed in biblical artwork. Pictures often leave out the details involving the fire, omnidirectional wheels, and the vaulted crystal encasing over the heads of the human-like creatures.
“15 As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the ground beside each creature with its four faces.16 This was the appearance and structure of the wheels: They sparkled like topaz, and all four looked alike. Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel.17 As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the creatures faced; the wheels did not change direction as the creatures went.18 Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around… 22 Spread out above the heads of the living creatures was what looked something like a vault, sparkling like crystal, and awesome.” – Ezekiel 1
These creatures with the ‘likeness of man,’ then take Ezekiel with them in their craft, bringing him to a ‘temple’ on top of the highest mountain. During his flight there, Ezekiel mentions feeling the hand of God on him, which could be interpreted as the force of gravity, or g-forces, felt when lifting off. He is taken to these beings’ ‘temple,’ which is likely a staging area or city where they reside.
CORROBORATING EVIDENCE
Throughout an array of biblical stories, the Ark of the Covenant presents itself as an artifact of interest for von Däniken’s theory. But it’s mention in the Kebra Nagast, an account of Christianity in Ethiopia under King Solomon, is where he sees the most relevancy. In this account, he says that it was known that King Solomon had flying machines that weren’t mentioned in the Bible as well as possession of the highly coveted Ark. These texts note that people were afraid of the Ark, as it often killed those who were in close contact with it. Was this because it was radioactive or electrically charged? Was the Ark of the Covenant a plutonium reactor?
Erich Von Däniken says he believes there are other bible verses that fit into his ancient astronaut theory, including some that hint at similar ‘temples’ or landing areas for spacecraft, much like the one Ezekiel was brought to. One such temple known as, Chavin de Huantar can be found in Peru, sitting thousands of feet high on a mountain from a culture of which little is known. The temple is decorated with winged figures and sculpted heads that appear to be wearing helmets. Von Däniken says he believes these to be of similar origin to those described by Ezekiel in the Bible. Is this actual evidence of ancient astronauts or an imaginative theory?
STEVENAGE, England — A space harpoon test went off without a hitch in a lab of European aerospace company Airbus last Thursday (March 15), suggesting that the technology could be on track to help clean up the ever-growing cloud of orbiting debris.
Engineers at Airbus' site here in Stevenage, a small town north of London, fired the 3.3-foot-long (1 meter) harpoon at about 56 mph (90 km/h) into a breadboard placed 5 feet (1.5 m) away. By the end of this year, the team plans to demonstrate a full-scale setup, firing a harpoon at a target 82 feet (25 m) away, as if it were capturing a real satellite in space.
"We are trying to demonstrate that we can successfully capture a piece of spacecraft with our harpoon design," said Alastair Wayman, advanced projects engineer at Airbus Defence and Space. "We have a really good basis for a flight design here to go to the next steps with the harpoon. It's one of the technologies that is easier to make next steps for." [Space Junk Cleanup: 7 Wild Ways to Destroy Orbital Debris]
The space-junk harpoon tested by Airbus in a lab here on Earth on March 15, 2018.
Credit: Airbus
The project is part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Clean Space initiative, which, in the mid-2020s, aims to carry out an ambitious mission that would remove the defunct Envisat, the largest Earth-observation satellite ever built.
The harpoon is one of the technologies ESA is considering for tackling Envisat, an 8.8-ton (8 metric tons) monster that died in 2012 after 10 years of service. Envisat is now one of the largest and most troublesome pieces of space junk threatening spacecraft in low Earth orbit (LEO), experts say.
"To capture Envisat, the harpoon would have to be about a meter and a half long and [weigh] 2.5 kilograms [5.5 lbs.]," Wayman said. "In comparison to Envisat, it's pretty small."
The chaser spacecraft carrying the harpoon would attach itself to its target using the harpoon and then use its thrusters to drag Envisat into Earth's atmosphere for a controlled re-entry.
Areas on the giant, dead Envisat Earth-observation satellite that the space-junk harpoon could target.
Credit: Airbus
ESA's Luisa Innocenti, who leads the Clean Space program, said last year that the agency is currently more inclined to use a robotic arm, as this technology could also be used for in-orbit servicing.
However, Wayman said that commercial opportunities for the harpoon technology will likely be plentiful even if it isn't used to deorbit Envisat.
"We are designing the harpoon around Envisat because it's the largest piece of debris," Wayman said. "If you can capture Envisat, you can capture everything. Active space-debris removal is getting more and more important. Every year that we don't achieve the target of deorbiting five large pieces of space debris, the situation gets worse, and we are more likely to have more collisions."
The world's space agencies agree that five large defunct satellites need to be removed from LEO every year to help prevent the Kessler syndrome, the unstoppable cascade of orbital collisions predicted by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in the late 1970s.
Wayman and his colleagues also designed and built a smaller harpoon system for the RemoveDEBRIS mission, an active debris-removal demonstration to be launched next month. As part of the mission, the harpoon will be fired into a fixed target extended from the main spacecraft on a boom. Wayman said the harpoon test is expected to take place in late 2018 or early 2019.
This artist's concept from August 2015 depicts NASA's InSight Mars lander fully deployed for studying the deep interior of Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
InSight is the next NASA lander scheduled to head to Mars. It will be a stationary mission, not like NASA's famous Opportunity, Spirit and Curiosityrovers,. Staying in place is necessary for its major science goals, which include learning more about the Martian composition, and how tectonically active Mars is. The mission will also be notable for its CubeSats, which will be the first time such tiny spacecraft fly beyond Earth.
InSight is expected to launch sometime between May 5 and June 8, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on an Atlas V vehicle from United Launch Alliance. If successful, the mission will land on Nov. 26, 2018, at the Martian Elysium Planitia, an equatorial zone just south of an ancient volcanic area. InSight will send back data about the Red Planet's interior for about 1 Mars year, or 728 Earth-days (a little more than two Earth years).
Brief development history
InSight was one of 28 submissions for NASA's next Discovery-class mission in 2010. This type of mission is a lower-cost explorer of the solar system. During InSight's selection round, individual proposals weren't allowed to exceed $425 million, excluding the cost of the launch vehicle.
InSight – then known as the Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) – and two other finalists (Titan Mare Explorer and Comet Hopper) each received $3 million in May 2011 to perform a concept study. InSight was tapped in August 2012 for the next launch. Construction began on InSight in May 2014. Its manufacturer is Lockheed Martin Space Systems.
In December 2015, NASA announced it could not launch as planned in March 2016 because of a leak in one of the craft's instruments, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS). At the time, agency officials said the mission might be removed entirely from the launch manifest. One limitation the agency cited was concern about exceeding the $675 million cost of the mission that included launch, data analyses and scientific operations. (At the time, they had spent $525 million.)
By the following fall, in September 2016, NASA announced a revised launch date for InSight. The announced delay to spring 2018 was no large surprise to the community, because the orbits of Mars and Earth only align favorably for a spacecraft flight every 26 months; outside of that window, it takes too much fuel to easily get to the Red Planet.
"The instrument redesign and two-year delay add $153.8 million" to the $675 million mission cost, NASA said in a statement. "The additional cost will not delay or cancel any current missions, though there may be fewer opportunities for new missions in future years, from fiscal years 2017-2020," it added.
InSight's landing zone is a flat stretch of the western Elysium Planitia, near the Martian equator.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Science goals and instruments
InSight has two major science goals, according to NASA. The first is to examine the interior — what it is made of, and what processes occur. The lander will provide information on the size and composition of the Martian core, crust and mantle. It also will show "how warm the interior is and how much heat is still flowing through," NASA said. The second goal is to learn if Mars is tectonically active (including where seismic activity is located), and how frequently meteorites slam into its surface.
"Previous missions to the Red Planet have investigated its surface by studying its canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil. But the signatures of the planet's formation can only be found by sensing and studying its vital signs far below the surface," NASA said.
InSight has three instruments that are designed to look at the deep interior of Mars and learn about the planet's geological activity, warmth and elements of its evolution, according to NASA.
The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will detect seismic waves from meteorite impacts, magma movements inside the planet, or marsquakes.
The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe, or HP3, will burrow about 5 meters (16 feet) into the surface. Its main job is to sense heat underground.
The Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment, or RISE, will aim to provide more information about the composition of the Martian core. It will keep careful track of where the lander is located, and from that information, discern any wobbles in the orbit of Mars as the planet orbits the sun. The composition of the core will influence the degree and type of oscillation Mars experiences.
InSight has a robotic arm that is more than 7 feet (2.4 m) long. This arm will place the seismometer and heat-flow probe on the surface for their measurements. The arm also features a camera that will take "color 3D views of the landing site, instrument placement, and activities," according to NASA. In addition, InSight has sensors to provide information on the weather, and any changes in the local magnetic field nearby the lander.
Riding along with InSight will be the first CubeSats to fly beyond Earth. The experiment, which encompasses two spacecraft, is called Mars Cube One. The CubeSats will fly behind InSight during its journey to Mars. If successful, once InSight begins its entry into the Martian atmosphere, the CubeSats will send information back to Earth about the spacecraft's last few minutes flying to the Red Planet's surface.
ETATS-UNIS UN OVNI A-T-IL POURSUIVI PUIS DÉPASSÉ UN AVION DE LIGNE?
ETATS-UNISUN OVNI A-T-IL POURSUIVI PUIS DÉPASSÉ UN AVION DE LIGNE?
Sur une vidéo datant de 2016, on peut voir un engin lumineux voler à grande vitesse derrière l'avion rempli de passagers. Puis le dépasser sans problème, sans laisser de trace.
Une vidéo datant de 2016 et publiée le 17 mars dernier sur YouTube interpelle les réseaux sociaux, ces dernières heures.
On peut, supposément, y voir un avion de ligne suivi par un engin lumineux mystérieux qui finit par le dépasser sans le moindre problème, selon le Daily Mail
En zoomant sur les images, l'objet volant non identifié semble avoir une forme de soucoupe, ce qui n'a pas manqué de faire réagir les ufologues.
Le phénomène s'est manifesté au-dessus de la ville étasunienne de Lincoln, dans le New Hampshire
L'auteur de la vidéo - un observateur assidu du ciel - s'est confié au Sun: «On m'a dit que des pilotes militaires s'entraînent dans les montagnes. Mais là, j'ai immédiatement pensé que ce que je voyais était étrange.»
«L'OVNI allait aussi vite que l'avion de ligne puis l'a dépassé, sans trace. Ca ne peut pas être un hélicoptère ni un autre avion à réaction. J'ai été époustouflé! J'ai pu heureusement sortir mon téléphone à temps pour prendre une vidéo», poursuit-il.
Des spécialistes se sont penchés sur les images mais n'ont pas détecté d'effet spécial particulier, pour le moment. Dès lors, libre à chacun d'imaginer de quoi il peut s'agir...
China's Tiangong-1 Space Lab Expected to Fall to Earth Over Easter Weekend
China's Tiangong-1 Space Lab Expected to Fall to Earth Over Easter Weekend
By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist
An artist's Illustration of China's Tiangong-1 space lab, which is expected to fall back to Earth between March 30 and April 2, 2018.
Credit: CMSA
China's Tiangong-1 space lab will likely fall to Earth between March 30 and April 2, according to the latest prediction by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Space Debris Office in Darmstadt, Germany.
This window is "highly variable," not ironclad, Space Debris Office representatives stressed in the updated forecast, which was issued yesterday (March 21).
Tiangong-1 was lofted in late September 2011, to help test the docking and rendezvous technologies required to build a bona fide space station, which China aims to do by the mid-2020s. [China's Tiangong-1 Space Lab in Pictures]
The first Chinese orbital docking occurred between Tiangong-1 and an unpiloted Shenzhou spacecraft on Nov. 2, 2011. Two piloted missions were subsequently completed to visit Tiangong-1: Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10, in June 2012 and June 2013, respectively.
Test campaign
Meanwhile, ESA will serve as host and administrator of a test campaign regarding the re-entry of Tiangong-1, conducted by the Inter Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC).
IADC comprises space-debris experts and other researchers from 13 space agencies and other organizations, including NASA, ESA, European national space agencies, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Russia's Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration.
IADC members will use the fall of Tiangong-1 to conduct their annual re-entry test campaign, during which participants will pool their predictions of the time window, as well as their respective tracking datasets obtained from radar and other sources. The aim is to cross-verify, cross-analyze and improve the prediction accuracy for all members.
Where on Earth?
It's unknown where exactly Tiangong-1 will fall back to Earth. But given the spacecraft's inclination, it will re-enter somewhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south latitudes.
Owing to the Chinese station's mass and construction materials, there is a distinct possibility that some portions of Tiangong-1 will survive the fiery journey through Earth's atmosphere and reach the surface, experts say.
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.
New footage depicting a UFO was released by former Blink-182 frontman Tom DeLonge’s extraterrestrial research institute To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) on Friday.
The video, which was taken in 2015 but only recently declassified by the Department of Defense (DoD), shows footage taken by a U.S. fighter jet pilot. “The unaltered footage was captured by a Raytheon advanced targeting forward-looking infrared (ATLFIR) pod, which contains the most advanced sensors and powerful tracking systems on the market,” a statement from TTSA says.
In the video, obtained by TTSA through a Freedom of Information Act request, the pilot locks his tracking system onto a small, white object flying above the ocean (in infrared vision, white means the object is hot) for around 30 seconds.
For a UFO, this small, white object is rather unassuming.
Clearly, the pilot doesn’t know what he’s looking at, a fact that delights more than frightens him. “What the fuck is that thing?” he asks with a chuckle.
In this case, the question provides the answer — it’s a UFO. Or, to use government parlance, it’s an “unidentified aerial phenomenon,” a euphemism perhaps adopted to shed the stigma of the UFO moniker.
TTSA has some rationale behind its excitement about the footage. One peculiar thing pointed out in the statement is that there are no discernible wings or tails on the object. “Even [infrared] imagery of a cruise missile, would have visible wings at this range,” the statement says.
In addition to the UFO’s shapelessness, TTSA notes there are no exhaust fumes picked up by the infrared sensors. By contrast, a typical fighter jet has an easily recognizable exhaust stream even when traveling at low speeds.
Friday’s video is just the latest piece of evidence released by DeLonge’s research institute to back up his long-held conviction that aliens definitely exist. DeLonge was awarded UFO Researcher of the Year by UFO-focused media company Open Minds in 2017.
Founded by DeLonge and former CIA official Jim Semivan in 2015, To The Stars Academy gathers scientists and researchers to study “exotic technologies,” aka what intelligent life may exist beyond our own planet. The new footage might seem like pretty tenuous evidence if TTSA wants to claim the object in the video is,,,, in fa,,ct,, an extraterrestrial craft. But when it comes to discovering the truth about aliens, it’s all the small things that really matter.
Some 7,600 years ago, human civilization in Southeastern Europe suddenly came to a halt. New research sought answers as to why this happened, and the findings paint a stark reminder of the toll rising seas can inflict on our society.
Coccolithophore Emiliana huxleyi.
Image credits Jörg Bollmann.
The Neolithic revolution was the first major transformation humanity had paused — the transition foraging to farming. Spreading out from the Middle East, this wave of change took peoples used to hunt and forage wherever they pleased and tied them down, hoe in hand, to sedentary — but oh so lucrative — farms and fields.
Can’t till the sea, though
Around 7,600 years ago, however, the revolution paused — no new agricultural settlements seemed to pop up in Southeastern Europe around the time, existing communities declined, and the progress of civilization as a whole came to a standstill. Up until now, we didn’t have any inkling as to why this happened, but new research from the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, the Goethe University in Frankfurt, and the University of Toronto sheds some light on this mysterious period.
According to their findings, this lull in progress was due to an abrupt rise in sea levels in the northern Aegean Sea. Evidence of this event was calcified in the fossils of tiny marine algae preserved in seafloor sediments.
The impact this event had on societal dynamics and overall development during the time highlights the potential economic and social threats posed by sea level rise in the future, the team says. Given that climate-change-associated changes in sea level are virtually unavoidable, the team hopes their findings will help us better prepare for the flooding ahead.
“Approximately 7,600 years ago, the sea level must have risen abruptly in the Mediterranean regions bordering Southeastern Europe. The northern Aegean, the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea recorded an increase of more than one meter. This led to the flooding of low-lying coastal areas that would have been ideal areas for settlement,” says lead author Professor Dr. Jens Herrle.
The findings are based on a sediment core retrieved from the sea floor of the northern Aegean Sea. Herrle and his team used this core to reconstruct salinity levels in this part of the Mediterranean from 11,000 and 5,000 years ago. However, the core was also rich in tiny, calcified fossils of Emiliania huxleyi, a coccolithophore (a species of photosynthesizing plankton that’s ubiquitous even today).
Analyzing them under a scanning electric microscope, the team observed significant size changes in these algae — which indicate a change in the salinity of surface water in the Aegean during their lifetime.
“These calcifying algae evidence two rapid decreases in the salt content, at approximately 8,400 and again 7,600 years ago, which can only be explained by the fact that a higher volume of low-saline surface water flowed from the Black Sea into the northern Aegean at these times,” Herrle explains.
Such a rapid rise in sea levels would need a source, and the team says, surprisingly, it can be traced back to North America:
“The source of this may have been Lake Agassiz in North America. This glacial meltwater lake was enclosed in ice and experienced a massive breach during this period, which emptied an enormous volume of water into the ocean.”
The evidence supports a link between the two timeouts in the Neolithic revolution and the flooding events. The event 8,400 years ago coincides with archaeological findings suggesting that settlements in low-lying areas were under significant hardship from encroaching seas and other associated climatic changes. The renewed rise just 800 years later likely amplified these communities’ woes, keeping them from making the transition to agriculture.
Past fluctuations in sea levels have already had a significant effect on human history during the early days of agriculture, the authors note, warning that it would be unwise to dismiss the challenges it will place in our path in the future.
“Due to climate change, we expect global sea levels to rise by up to one meter over the next 100 years,” Herrle adds. “Millions of people could thus be displaced from coastal regions, with severe social and economic consequences.”
The paper “Black Sea outflow response to Holocene meltwater events” has been publishedin the journal Scientific Reports.
This Is What the Entire Known Universe Looks Like in a Single Image
This Is What the Entire Known Universe Looks Like in a Single Image
Written byJoanie Faletto
The farthest manmade thing from Earth is Voyager 1. Though this 1970s-era spacecraft is pretty far out there by now and still sending back information, it'll never be able to take a snapshot of the Solar System. Or the Milky Way. And definitely not the entire observable universe. But with a little math and artistic prowess, we can cobble together what we may look like from way, way, way out there.
In 2012, musician and artist Pablo Carlos Budassi created the illustration of all illustrations: a full-scale view of the entire observable Universe. The resulting image looks like a giant eyeball, with humanity square in the middle. In the image above, you'll see our sun and Solar System in the center, as you move outward you'll see the outer ring of the Milky Way, the Perseus arm of the Milky Way, a ring of nearby galaxies like Andromeda, the rest of the cosmic web, cosmic microwave background radiation leftover from the Big Bang, and, lastly, the Big Bang's leftover ring of plasma.
Art and Science
You may notice that the Earth looks weirdly large in comparison to pretty much every other object depicted. The reason is that Budassi created this image on a logarithmic scale, not the linear scale you usually see in astronomy images. If he didn't, the image would be impractically humongous — this is the entire universe we're talking about, after all. To get a better understanding of the scale, think of this flat image as a cone pointed straight at you. The sun is at the tip. Each section of the cone further away from you represents a field of view several orders of magnitude larger than the one before it.
Budassi was able to do this by collecting maps, photographs, and data from Princeton researchers and NASA. In 2005, a team of Princeton researchers published a collection of logarithmic maps of the Universe in Astrophysical Journal (you can see them here). While they look more like charts than they do rich photographs, the researchers were able to accurately "display the entire range of astronomical scales from the Earth's neighborhood to the cosmic microwave background" to a logarithmic scale. Using this information, Budassi put together "Photoshop using images from NASA and some textures created [on] my own." The final result? Our weirdly eyeball-looking, not-exactly-to-scale-but-maybe-the-best-we-can-do-for-now Universe.
To learn more about why the universe is flat, check out the course "The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries" by our partner The Great Courses Plus. Get a sneak peek below, and watch the rest of this video when you start a free trial here.
New spy plane can travel at five times the speed of sound
New spy plane can travel at five times the speed of sound
By Sean Keach, The Sun
Boeing
Boeing has finally unveiled a successor to the legendary Blackbird SR-71 spy plane, capable of traveling at five times the speed of sound.
The new “Son of Blackbird” was revealed at an event in Orlando, Florida, but it’s only a concept design for now.
The new aircraft will be a direct competitor to Lockheed Martin’s upcoming SR-72.
These rival firms are racing to create a hypersonic aircraft that’s capable of stealthy recon assignments — and strike missions, too.
Speaking to Aviation Week Aerospace Daily, Boeing’s hypersonics chief described how Boeing was planning a two-step development process for the new warplane.
The first stage would involve flight tests of an “F16-size, single-engine” precursor vehicle that acts as a “proof of concept.”
The second stage is the creation of a “twin-engine, full-scale operational vehicle” that has roughly similar dimensions to the 107-foot-long SR-71.
Boeing’s end goal is an aircraft that can travel at speeds beyond Mach 5 — that’s five times the speed of sound.
The speed of sound — or Mach 1 — is around 767 miles per hour. So hitting Mach 5 would mean the Son of Blackbird would have to travel at an incredible 3,836 miles per hour.
For comparison, a Boeing 747 passenger jet typically reaches cruising speeds of just 549 miles per hour.
The tricky part is that the SR-71 replacement needs to be able to take off, accelerate, slow down and land all on its own — just like the original 1964 model.
Boeing is looking at using a conventional turbojet to hit Mach 3, then switching to a different configuration to boost beyond Mach 5.
Sadly, there’s no guarantee when Boeing will have a sky-ready model, so we’ll just have to drool over concept renderings for now.
Kim Wilde said an encounter with a UFO in 2009 inspired her to make a music comeback.
(YouTube)
“Kids in America” singer Kim Wilde said an encounter with a UFO in 2009 was one of the reasons she decided to return to music and make a comeback.
Wilde told the BBC after leaving the music business she got married and raised her children. However, two events pushed her to come back and give music a second chance.
Wilde claims she had an encounter with a UFO in 2009. She said she was sitting in the garden at her home with a glass of wine when she saw something.
"Then I looked up in the sky and saw this huge bright light behind a cloud. Brighter than the moon, but similar to the light from the moon,” she said.
"I said to my husband and my friend, 'that's really odd,' so we walked down the grass and looked to see if there was any source. All of a sudden it moved, very quickly, from about 11:00 to 1:00. Then it just did that, back and forth, for several minutes,” Wilde recalled.
"Whenever it moved, something shifted in the air - but it was silent. Absolutely silent."
The singer said she thinks about the moment every day and it gave her an idea for her new album, “Here Comes the Aliens.”
She sings on the album that maybe the aliens will “save us from the apocalypse.”
"Perhaps that's completely naïve," she laughs. "Why wouldn't they be angry with us and fling us off this beautiful earth that we're ruining? I can't deny we haven't been a terrible disappointment,” Wilde said.
She said her career started to flatline in the 1990s when she became older and felt she could not keep up.
"I'd been in it since I was 20, then I was 36 and everyone, I felt, was doing it a lot better than I was. They had the ambition that I didn't have any more. When Madonna came along, I didn't feel I could compete, so I said, 'You know what? You're best off being who you are, and that's going to have to be enough,’” Wilde told the BBC. "Sometimes it was, and a lot of the time it wasn't."
Wilde announced she would be starting her comeback tour on March 30.
STRAP YOURSELVES IN FOLKS, WE’VE GOT A DOOZY OF A TALE FOR YOU THIS MORNING.
STRAP YOURSELVES IN FOLKS, WE’VE GOT A DOOZY OF A TALE FOR YOU THIS MORNING.
After all, it’s Friday and what better way to end the week than with a big old spooky conspiracy story.
A video has emerged on Youtube of a UFO just casually following an aeroplane.
Yep, we’re in the deep end now, my friends.
The UFO not only follows the plane but overtakes it then disappears.
Why?
Who can tell.
Are we now totally convinced that aliens walk amongst us?
you betcha.
The sighting took place in Lincoln, New Hampshire, according to News.com, and was captured in 2016 but only surfaced on Youtube earlier this week, since racking up almost 96,000 views.
The person who captured the footage said they were home reading when they noticed the strange object close to the aircraft.
“I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them fly through,” they can be heard saying.
“So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.”
“I immediately thought I was witnessing some strange aircraft, possibly military but it was not a jet.”
“THE UFO WAS GAINING ON A JET. NO HELICOPTER COULD DO THAT. I WAS BLOWN AWAY AND LUCKILY GOT OUT MY PHONE IN TIME TO TAKE A VIDEO”
Lucky indeed.
One commenter on Youtube suggests what we’re seeing is two planes travelling at “different altitudes, creating vapour trail”, but the witness filming has other ideas.
“Shortly after the jet and object left my range of sight I saw three more jets and 1 helicopter going the same direction (in my opinion chasing the UFO),” the witness said.
That last part wasn’t captured on video for some reason, but we DEFINITELY believe them.
In August 1969, Alan Potter an apprentice radio technician, was servicing a radar at Adelaide Airport when he spotted something peculiar on the radar head.
Potter was tracking a Fokker Friendship flying from Adelaide to Kingscote on Kangaroo Island, but as the radar turned slowly, it pinged a large object approaching from Port Lincoln, it was like nothing he’d seen in the area before.
The Fokker flight was flying towards Kangaroo Island, when a small object, looked to leave the large object and fly in a line towards the Fokker plane.
The two signals met over Rapid Bay before the smaller signal returned to the larger one. Potter laughed at the idea the two signals could have been a UFO checking out the Fokker, but after further thought, there was nothing else it could be.
During the 1960s, Adelaide became a hotspot for “spotting” UFOs. The Bunyip Newspaper publication published several articles of unexpected and unexplained sighting and experiences. Though Potter’s sighting was logged by the Australian UFO Research Network in 2004, no passengers or pilots on the Fokker reported anything out of the order.
Lead Image: Rocks on Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Researchers hope their new research will settle debate over the origins of Ata, a naturally mummified infant found in the Chilean desert.
Ata, the six-inch mummy found in Chile's Atacama desert
PHOTOGRAPH BY EMERY SMITH
By Erika Check Hayden
Ata is just six inches tall, with a conical-shaped head and unusually hard bones for her size. Some have claimed that she’s an alien. But a new study published today in the journal Genome Research not only continues to disprove the alien theory, but also reveals a scientific explanation for her allegedly extraterrestrial appearance.
The debate started in 2003 when the naturally mummified remains of Ata were discovered near a ghost town in Chile’s Atacama Desert. A Spanish businessman, Ramón Navia-Osorio, purchased her mummy and in 2012 allowed a doctor named Steven Greer to use x-ray and computed tomography (CT) imaging to analyze her skeleton.
Greer is the founder of The Disclosure Project, which is “working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems,” according to its Web site.
Ata is only as long as a human fetus. But a radiologist who analyzed the images said that Ata’s bones were about as mature as those of a human six-year-old.
At the time, Greer also provided samples of Ata’s bone marrow to immunologist Garry Nolan at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Nolan’s team sequenced Ata’s DNA and concluded that her genetic material was from a human being, not an alien. But he couldn’t explain how such a small person could exhibit her unusual physical appearance.
Ata is only as long as a human fetus, but her bones are about as mature as those of a six-year-old.
PHOTOGRAPH BY EMERY SMITH
“Once we understood that it was human, the next step was to understand how something could come to look like this,” Nolan says.
So Nolan worked with genetic researchers at Stanford and with computational biologist Atul Butte’s team at the University of California, San Francisco to analyze Ata’s genome. According to their new study, mutations are present in seven of Ata’s genes that are all involved in human growth. Nolan now thinks that this combination of mutations caused Ata’s severe skeletal abnormalities, including her unusually rapid bone growth. He says that Ata is most likely a human fetus who was either stillborn or died soon after birth.
But those who believe that Ata is extraterrestrial aren’t changing their minds, regardless of the new scientific revelations.
“We don’t know what it is, but it most certainly is not a deformed human,” says Greer, who is aware of the new research.
Scientists, however, say that in light of the new analysis, it’s time to bury the Ata controversy.
MILLIONS OF PUPPY MUMMIES FOUND
In an ancient Egyptian catacomb, a National Geographic explorer made an astonishing discovery—millions of puppy mummies.
“The alien hype was silly pseudoscience promoted for media attention,” says paleoanthropologist and anatomist William Jungers, an emeritus professor at Stony Brook University Medical Center. “This paper puts that nonsense and poor little Ata to bed.”
Doctors who treat children with rare genetic bone disorders also think the debate highlights how archaeologists and other scientists can be misled by genetic disorders that cause unusual physical features. For instance, geneticist Fowzan Alkuraya points to the controversy surrounding the “hobbits,” small creatures that were discovered 15 years ago in Indonesia. Scientists are still embroiled in debate over whether the diminutive beings are relatives of modern humans, or are simply humans with unusually small size.
“This paper serves as a reminder about the exotic nature of many genetic disorders,” says Alkuraya, who is a geneticist at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
All humans—Ata included—can have many different genetic mutations. But usually only one of these mutations actually causes a child’s disease. It’s “virtually unheard of” for seven mutations to be involved, Alkuraya says; he thinks that one or at most two of the mutations probably caused Ata’s growth problems.
Nolan disagrees: “That poor child unfortunately rolled the dice seven times snake eyes,” he says.
But it would be difficult, if not impossible, to decide which of Ata’s genetic defects caused her symptoms. That’s because scientists don’t have any information about Ata’s relatives. If they had DNA from Ata’s parents, for instance, they could check which of Ata’s mutations were also present in her mother and father. Any of Ata’s mutations that were also present in her parents’ DNA might be harmless, because unlike Ata, her parents lived long enough to conceive a baby.
Even though no one knows anything about her parents, Nolan thinks that someone cared for Ata when she died about 40 years ago. He points to the way she was carefully laid flat on the ground, wrapped in a leather pouch.
“They didn’t just throw it away; somebody thought it was important. It was their child,” Nolan says.
Like Jungers, Nolan now wants to see Ata returned to Chile and laid to rest once again.
“I don’t think that people should be trafficking in human bodies and claiming they’re aliens for the sake of monetary advantage,” Nolan says.
Third DoD UFO video is posted with Washington Post article
Third DoD UFO video is posted with Washington Post article
To the Stars Academy (TTSA) posted a third Department of Defense (DoD) UFO video in coordination with the posting of an opinion piece by TTSA member Chris Mellon in The Washington Post. Mellon is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence. He served during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Mellon is a current the national security affairs advisor for TTSA.
This video is perhaps the most impressive, but very few details about the video were released, and although most of the media attention has been supportive of the DoD’s UFO program, some doubts and confusion have also arisen.
The new video is being referred to by the TTSA as the “2015 GO FAST FOOTAGE.” According to TTSA, this video, as with the others, is from the Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) system of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet. The actual footage of the object is a little over 30 seconds long. The TTSA video presenting the footage is about two minutes long with an introduction that includes a description of the telemetry seen on the screen of the ATFLIR system.
Two Navy jet-fighter pilots are commenting on the object in the video. Both appear to be very excited about the object. When the video starts, the UFO darts across the screen as the ATFLIR operator is attempting to get a lock on it, which he finally does. The object seems to be moving very fast below the jet-fighter. The telemetry shows that the aircraft capturing the video is at 25,000 feet traveling at 259 knots (approximately 300 mph).
The object appears to be round. ATFLIR displays heat, but as demonstrated in a graphic on the TTSA website, aircraft shape is still discernible with these systems, and in this case, no wings or exhaust are apparent.
The ATFLIR display reveals significant information regarding flight conditions and characteristics of the imagery.
(Credit: To the Stars Academy)
As to when and where this video comes from, we have only a couple of pieces of information. The TTSA website states, “The date, location, and other information has been removed by the originating authority as part of the release approval process.” However, the title indicates the video is from 2015. Also, in the Washington Postarticle, Mellon describes the video as a “Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015.”
Chris Mellon
(Credit: To the Stars Academy)
It should be noted that these videos have were all posted by TTSA. The DoD has not directly provided them to anyone else, yet. TTSA notes on the GO FAST video, “While TTSA was the first to obtain a copy, it should be available to any member of the press or public via the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].” However, of the several researchers who have submitted FOIA request I am aware of, none have received copies of the videos. In fact, the responses the DoD have given are a bit odd.
John Greenewald of TheBlackVault.com is an experienced FOIA researcher with perhaps the most extensive online repository of documents received via FOIA requests. Greenewald has several FOIAs filed in regards to these videos and their release. One of the first he submitted was for the records of Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP), the agency that investigated these videos and determined them to be unknown. Greenewald also sent a FOIA to the National Security Agency (NSA) for information about AATIP. In both cases, he was told no records exist. The response may be due to the way in which the requests were submitted. For instance, when he filed the first FOIA, he was not sure of the exact name of the DoD UFO program. In the second FOIA, he was asking for NSA records in a particular database which may not have records on AATIP. Greenewald says over the phone an NSA representative did confirm to him the name of the program is Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program. AATIP has been called Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program, among other variations. Apparently, the NSA is aware of the program.
FOIA response received by Greenewald.
(Credit: John Greenewald/TheBlackVault.com)
Government UFO documents researcher Paul Dean has filed a FOIA requesting the forms regarding the declassification of the videos. The response he received says his request “has been placed in our [Office of the Secretary of Defense and Joint Staff] complex processing queue and is being worked based on the order in which the request was received. Our current administrative workload is approximately 2,246 open requests.”
It may be some time before Dean receives any further information. All of this indicates that TTSA’s suggestion that researchers use FOIA to obtain more information is going to be a lengthy and challenging process.
The documents are particularly relevant because there have been some mixed messages from government agencies. Although the DoD confirmed to the New York Times that AATIP existed, according the UK tabloid The Sun, a spokesperson for the U.S., Defense Intelligence Agency told them “There is some confusion about this program and claims about its purpose in press reporting… the Defense Intelligence Agency has not released any information, files or videos.”
More recently, an article covering skeptic perspectives on the videos in CNET claims a spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of Defense said “The Department of Defense did not release those videos. I cannot confirm their authenticity. I don’t have any additional info to provide.”
Still, despite these confusing statements, mainstream media seems to mostly be taking Elizondo’s word in regards to his conclusions regarding the mysterious nature of the videos. Senator Harry Reid and Navy pilots have backed his claims. However, even though Elizondo says AATIP still operates today, most mainstream media outlets are still reporting that the program closed in 2012. That is when the DoD says they stopped funding AATIP. Elizondo says AATIP continued after 2012, and he told me that since he left AATIP this past October, a high ranking official has replaced him as the chief of the program. In his interview for the International UFO Congress, Elizondo explained that after they lost funding, “we very quickly continued our efforts and we started to dual-use a lot of what we were doing.”
“…as an example, one may be interested in putting out a requirement looking for let’s say advanced ICBM technology,” Elizondo continued. “So you would go out, and you would ask folks, ‘I want you to be able to give me a paper that helps me understand anything coming into Earth’s orbit with these particular profiles.’ So hypersonic velocities, loads over ability et cetera, and what might be useful for let’s say identifying North Korean ICBM missiles coming into the continental United States could also be useful in identifying other objects, things that are coming in with that same flight pattern but not necessarily a ballistic missile.”
Luis Elizondo during the International UFO Congress interview filmed by To the Stars Academy.
(Credit: International UFO Congress/To the Stars Academy)
In an interview on Open Minds UFO Radio, Leslie Kean, one of the authors of the New York Times article that broke the AATIP story in December, referred to a memo regarding the release of the videos by the DoD. She was not at liberty to share the document with the public at that time. The release of this memo would help clear up some of the questions.
Despite the many loose ends and unanswered questions dangling out there, the media seems to be accepting that indeed UFOs are a real phenomenon in which the U.S. government has had an interest. The gist of Mellon’s Washington Post article, titled “The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?,” is that it is time the U.S. government take this issue more seriously.
When asked by a BBC Radio 5 host what the military should do about UFOs, Mellon responded, “The first thing we need to do for national security and scientific reasons is to increase collection, analysis and research and development.”
“We have in existence proof here that there are propulsion capabilities and aeronautical capabilities beyond what we have,” Mellon explained. “Ergo, we ought to expand research and development in promising leads that might provide us with similar capabilities. At the same time, we can easily and dramatically expand our knowledge and understanding simply by putting someone in charge and try to answer the question.”
According to Mellon, various government agencies and branches of the military do have an interest in UFO incidents, but they do not share information with each other. Nor do they apply the necessary resources to figure it out. He seems to agree that these cases Elizondo has identified as significant are worthy of a renewed effort to take a serious look, with the appropriate resources, at the UFO phenomenon.
Mellon writes, “…the national security implications of these incidents are concerning — but the scientific opportunities are thrilling. Who knows what perils we may avoid or opportunities we might identify if we follow the data?”
Note:This article was updated on March 22 as a result of a clarification by Leslie Kean. The DoD memo regarding the release of the videos was in the possession of the authors of the New York Times article posted on December 16, 2017. She is not aware of whether TTSA also has a copy of the memo. She adds, “there is absolutely no question that the videos were cleared by the DOD from their files.”
New LightSail 2 Spacecraft Will Boost Solar-Sailing Interplanetary Missions
New LightSail 2 Spacecraft Will Boost Solar-Sailing Interplanetary Missions
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
A new solar-sailing spacecraft will be a call to all (future) occupants of interplanetary craft. The Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft will be a test bed for future missions wanting to use solar sails — including NASA's proposed cubesat, the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout).
LightSail 2 will launch no earlier than June 13 from the Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, Florida, using SpaceX's new and powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. The spacecraft's ultimate destination will be medium-Earth orbit of about 725 kilometers (450 miles) — roughly double the altitude of the International Space Station.
The mission's ultimate goal is to test out "flight by light," as The Planetary Society calls it — solar sailing in space. This type of propulsion uses the gentle push of photons streaming from the sun to move the spacecraft around. The greatest benefit is that the spacecraft doesn't have to carry fuel with it. On a small satellite like a cubesat, said Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, every gram of weight counts. [The Evolution of Solar Sails in Photos]
"We've been waiting for a launch where we could get to a higher altitude [above Earth], where solar pressure will dominate over the atmospheric drag," Betts told Space.com.
"We actually will be trying to do controlled solar sailing … every half an [Earth] orbit, we will be pushed by the sunlight, and for the other half of the orbit, we will be edge-on to the sunlight," added Betts, who is also The Planetary Society's director of science and technology.
Improvements from LightSail 1
LightSail 2, set to launch no earlier than June 13, 2018, will be visible to observers on the ground as it orbits Earth for a month or more.
The Planetary Society's LightSail 1 launched on May 20, 2015, along with the Air Force's supersecret X-37B space plane. It survived for just under a month in low Earth orbit. While it met its major mission objective of deploying the sail, the test flight had several issues along the way.
Just two days after launch, a software glitch delayed plans to deploy the solar sail until June 7. The spacecraft transmitted an image June 9 showing that the sail unfurled successfully, meeting its primary mission objective. But then, more problems arose.
"Before engineers could get a picture from the opposite-side cameras, LightSail's radio began transmitting a continuous, nonsensical signal, and the spacecraft stopped responding to commands," said the Planetary Society's Jason Davis in a blog post on June 15, 2015. The spacecraft also stopped transmitting on June 10, shortly before it entered the atmosphere as originally planned.
"We learned a lot from LightSail 1," Betts said. "It taught us a lot about the spacecraft, and after the various issues, we made a lot of improvements."
The Planetary Society’s LightSail cubesat captured this image of its deployed solar sails in Earth orbit on June 8, 2015.
Credit: The Planetary Society
Some of the key improvements will help LightSail 2 make more efficient use of the particles coming its way. The most dramatic hardware difference is a momentum wheel, or a rapidly spinning wheel that helps LightSail 2 maintain position in space. Its attitude determination and control software is different from LightSail 1's equipment. The cameras were also upgraded to transmit higher-quality images of the sails.
Other improvements were intended to make the spacecraft more robust. Instead of "waiting for reboots to sometime, magically happen," Betts said, there are timers on board with automatic settings to restart processes, or, at worst, to reboot the entire spacecraft in case of trouble. More information will be included in the radio signal to give controllers information about the spacecraft's health status. Engineers also added reflectors to make the position of LightSail 2 easier to track from the ground.
Interplanetary craft
This photo shows Japan's Ikaros solar sail as it sailed by the planet Venus (which appears as the crescent at upper right) on Dec. 8, 2010. The Ikaros solar sail was about 80,000 kilometers from Venus during the flyby.
Credit: JAXA
A couple of other spacecraft have successfully tested out solar sailing in space. The most notable example is the Japanese Ikaros (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun), which successfully traveled using a solar sail in 2010 during Japan's Akatsuki mission to Venus. It's the only spacecraft that uses that method to move so far in deep space — in 2012, Ikaros received the Guinness World Record as the first solar sail spacecraft between planets. [Are Solar Sails the Future of Space Travel?]
NASA also deployed a solar sail on the NanoSail-D2 in low Earth orbit in 2010 as well; that mission focused more on the sail's deployment, and how the sail behaved in low Earth orbit. (The agency planned another solar-sailing mission called Sunjammer, but it was canceled before launch.)
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Ikaros solar sail is seen in deep space after its deployment on June 14, 2010, in this view taken from a small camera ejected by the sail.
Credit: JAXA
This means LightSail 2 will add vitally needed, real-world information about how solar sails behave in space. Its team is in contact with another solar sail experimental team as well: the NEA Scout team, which will use a solar sail to fly by an asteroid. "They are planning on using a solar sail with similar type design and characteristics to LightSail 2," Betts said.
NEA Scout is scheduled to join a dozen other tiny missions aboard the Orion's Exploration Mission-1, which will also be the first test flight of NASA's Space Launch System and is currently scheduled for no earlier than 2019. NEA Scout is expected to fly past an asteroid called 1991 VG, although the decision to fly by the asteroid hasn't been finalized yet.
Solar sailing is a possible propulsion method for distant-future interstellar missions because fuel doesn't need to be carried on board. NASA has played around with various mission-concept ideas. Similarly, the privately funded Breakthrough Starshot initiative plans to use a laser in combination with a sailto send a tiny probe to Earth's nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.
Editor's Note: This article has been corrected to note that LightSail 2 is propelled using photons streaming from the sun, not charged particles in the solar wind.
For the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), killing people isn’t all that complicated. A budget of more than $600 billion per year buys a whole lot of tanks, guns, and bombs.
But not killing someone proves to be a bit more complicated. How about just stunning them a bit from far away? Or maybe setting their clothes on fire without having to look them in the face?
For that, we’ve got the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Development Program (JNLWD). The program’s purpose: to develop weapons and other devices military personnel can use to incapacitate targets without outright killing them. As explained on the program’s FAQ, the goal of the JNLWD is to fill the gap between “shout and shoot” (truly, we should all be grateful the armed forces acknowledge that such a gap exists).
The JNLWD’s latest breakthrough is the Non-Lethal Laser-Induced Plasma Effect (NL-LIPE) system. They recently gave Defense One a look at the in-development device. And it’s truly a sight to behold.
Rather, a sound to behold. Take a listen below (and maybe make sure your pets are out of the room because, we promise, they really hate this).
Here’s how this device is useful. Imagine an enemy is getting a bit too close for comfort, and you want them to back off.
You could use a stun grenade, a blinding flash of light and noise that leaves the enemy disoriented and stunned. Those only work if you’re close enough to throw them, though.
And maybe you have some good guys standing in between. How do you blast the enemy but not the good guys? That’s where the lasers come in.
First, the NL-LIPE operator shoots a burst of light at the target using a femtosecond laser. This rips electrons from the air molecules to create a ball of plasma at the targeted site. The operator then manipulates the plasma ball using a second nanolaser, directing the plasma to produce sound or light, or even burn clothing.
Right now, of course, the technology is still in development, so it only works under pretty specific conditions. Eventually, though, the military thinks it could get the device to work at distances of tens of kilometers, David Law, head of JNLWD’s technology division, told Defense One. That would give it a longer range than any other non-lethal weapon.
Law also said the researchers believe they’re very close to getting their device to outright “speak” to them, but the creepy almost-voice it already produces would likely be enough to get any enemies to turn tail.
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Graham Hancock: An Entire Episode Of The Human Story Has Been Lost
Graham Hancock: An Entire Episode Of The Human Story Has Been Lost
Hancock describes an advanced civilization very different from our own, with advanced technological skills. This should have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to evolve, but it was brought into use almost overnight.
Amazing research and presentation. still coming into grasps with this. but really angry of those mainstream academics from the Dark-ages for freezing funds towards discovery and research.
Neutral-particle beams, a concept first tried in the 1980s, may get a fresh look under Michael Griffin.
The next thing in space-based weapons could be decades old, according to Michael Griffin, the first defense undersecretary for research and engineering.
“Directed energy is more than just big lasers,” Griffin said. “That’s important. High-powered microwave approaches can effect an electronics kill. The same with the neutral particle beam systems we explored briefly in the 1990s” for use in space-based anti-missile systems. Such weapons can be “useful in a variety of environments” and have the “advantage of being non-attributable,” meaning that it can be hard to pin an attack with a particle weapon on any particular culprit since it leaves no evidence behind of who or even what did the damage.
Like lasers, neutral-particle beams focus beams of energy that travel in straight lines, unaffected by electromagnetic fields. But instead of light, neutral-particle beams use composed of accelerated subatomic particles traveling at near-light speed, making them easier to work with (though the folks that run CERN’s hadron collider may disagree). When its particles touche the surface of a target, they takes on a charge that allows them to penetrate the target’s shell or exterior more deeply.
This all makes neutral-particle beams attractive as space-based anti-missile systems. Over the years, various defense companies have released mockups of proposed designs that seem to come out of an issue of Popular Mechanics circa 1950.
The Pentagon first tested the concept in the late 1980s as part of a program called the Neutral Particle Beam, or NPB. According to a 1990 writeup that military scientists sent to lawmakers, it explored the possibility of a space-based weapon that could “kill missiles and reentry vehicles in the boost, post-boost, and mid-course portion of an ICBM trajectory as well as discriminated objects during the midcourse phase” — meaning a defensive system that could knock out missiles as they were leaving the launch pad or flying in space toward their target.
In July, 1989, the program put a neutral-particle beam into orbit as part of a project called the Beam Experiment Aboard a Rocket, which analysts described as “a major success for the NPBprogram.” The tests showed that the weapon could be ruggedized for space launch and operation and that the beam was sufficiently narrow to hit a target.
The writeup concluded that a neutral-particle beam would be “difficult, if not impossible, to countermeasure in both the kill and discrimination role since it penetrates in-depth into the target. Analysis and tests have been conducted to verify that the entry level NPB can defeat all proposed counter-measures to the beam-target interaction. It is also effective against homing direct assent [anti-satellite] which allows the NPB to defend itself and other space-based assets.”
Griffin did not say that he welcomed particle beam ideas based specifically in space. Nevertheless, because space was the environment that the U.S.“explored briefly in the 1990s” for such weapons, that is what his comments convey. He drove home this point, saying “We should not lose our way… with some of the other technologies that were pioneered in the 80s and the early 1990s and now stand available for renewed effort…I will be very welcoming of other approaches that have not had a lot of focus in recent years or recent decades.”
He refused to answer reporter requests for clarification on his comments after his presentation.
Griffin did express some caution about a different take on directed-energy anti-missile weapons: the Low Power Laser Demonstrator program, to which the military has already devoted $66 million in the most recent budget request. The LPLD seeks to put a laser aboard a drone to shoot down missile just after launch. “I think frankly I’m more concerned about exactly how high you have to be in the atmosphere to propagate a laser beam with sufficient density to score a kill at a reasonable range,” Griffin said. “I’ve found that I can get an informed opinion that says you can’t do it. And another opinion that says you can. I think that jury’s still out.”
And so, he said, when it comes to striking North Korean missiles before or soon after launch, the most practical near-term solution remains still “kinetic effects” or missiles, “especially against adversary countries where we can conduct airborne operations not too far off their shores.”
Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, ... FULL BIO
Kerry John together with his wife flew over Turkey somewhere over Izman and Khios Sea heading into Athens around 4.30 pm on March 21, 2018 when they noticed something that appears to be flying away at right angles from the commercial jet and somehow without either of them appearing to turn they end up almost following the black object.
Kerry states: In my days I was the vice president of the UFO society in Canberra Australia. We investigated sightings but I must admit this was odd even for me.
It was obviously close as the angle relative to the plane changed quite rapidly.
Up at altitude we often see in undisturbed air as this was a very calm air, white streaks like fine layers of crystalline clouds.
This was spotted by my wife a little before I filmed it. It was a thin black line. When I first saw it and to me incorrectly, it appeared to turn straight towards the plane I thought I had seconds to live and was relieved to realize it was facing away and we appeared to fly by.
Note:Black object is a UFO or a Missile? In case it is a missile better you think twice before you take a commercial plane that flies over Turkey!
A new study links oceans on ancient Mars to the rise of the planet’s Tharsis volcano system, home to the largest volcanoes in our solar system.
A Viking spacecraft image of the Tharsis region of Mars. The scene shows the Tharsis bulge, a huge ridge covered by the 3 large aligned Tharsis Montes shield volcanoes (from lower left to right): Arsia, Pavonis, and Ascraeus Mons. To the left of the Tharsis Montes lies the huge Olympus Mons shield volcano. Read more about this image here.
A new study suggests oceans on Mars were shallower and formed several hundred million years earlier than thought, and links their existence to the rise of the planet’s Tharsis volcano system.
Tharsis is a vast volcanic plateau centered near the equator in Mars’ western hemisphere. The region is home to the largest volcanoes in our solar system.
Michael Manga, a University of California, Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science, is senior author of the paper, published Monday (March 19, 2018) in the journal Nature. Manga said in a statement:
Volcanoes may be important in creating the conditions for Mars to be wet.
The early ocean known as Arabia (left, blue) would have looked like this when it formed 4 billion years ago on Mars, while the Deuteronilus ocean, about 3.6 billion years old, had a smaller shoreline. Both coexisted with the massive volcanic province Tharsis, located on the unseen side of the planet, which may have helped support the existence of liquid water. The water is now gone, perhaps frozen underground and partially lost to space, while the ancient seabed is known as the northern plains.
Those who adhere to the theory that Mars never had oceans of liquid water often point out that estimates of the size of the oceans don’t jibe with estimates of how much water could be hidden on Mars today as permafrost underground, and how much could have escaped into space. These are the main options, scientists say, given that the polar ice caps don’t contain enough water to fill an ocean.
The new study proposes that the oceans formed before or at the same time as Mars’ largest volcanic feature, Tharsis, instead of after the volcanic system formed 3.7 billion years ago.
According to the study, Tharsis was smaller at that time, so it didn’t distort the planet as much as it did later – in particular the plains that cover most of the northern hemisphere and are the presumed ancient seabed.
The researchers say that the absence of crustal deformation from Tharsis means the seas would have been shallower, holding about half the water of earlier estimates. Manga said:
The assumption was that Tharsis formed quickly and early, rather than gradually, and that the oceans came later. We’re saying that the oceans predate and accompany the lava outpourings that made Tharsis.
Tharsis, now a 3,000-mile-wide (5,000 km) eruptive complex, dominates the topography of Mars. Earth, which is twice the diameter and 10 times more massive than Mars, has no equivalent dominating feature. Tharsis’ bulk creates a bulge on the opposite side of the planet and a depression halfway between. This explains why estimates of the volume of water the northern plains could hold based on today’s topography are twice what the new study estimates based on the topography 4 billion years ago.
The scientists suggest that Tharsis spewed gases into the atmosphere that created a global warming or greenhouse effect that allowed liquid water to exist on the planet, and also that volcanic eruptions created channels that allowed underground water to reach the surface and fill the northern plains.
A map of Mars today shows where scientists have identified possible ancient shoreline that may have been etched by intermittent oceans billions of years ago. The new study counters another argument against Mars oceans: that the proposed shorelines are irregular, varying in height by as much as a kilometer, when they should be level, like shorelines on Earth. The study says the irregular elevations of these shorelines can be explained by the growth of the volcanic province called Tharsis some 3.7 billion years ago, which would have deformed the topography and misaligned the shorelines. Arabia (magenta) is more than 4 billion years old, while the Deuteronilus (white) and Isidis (cyan) shoreline are several million years younger. The solid contour lines represent the Tharsis bulge (left) and the antipodal bulge it created (right), with dashed contour lines indicating the depressions in between.
COMING INTO FOCUS Saturn shines in this Cassini image taken in October 2013. Even though the spacecraft is gone, scientists are still learning from its 13 years’ worth of data.
JPL-CALTECH/NASA, SSI, CORNELL UNIV.
THE WOODLANDS, Texas — It’s been six months since NASA’s Cassini spacecraft plunged to its doom in the atmosphere of Saturn, but scientists didn’t spend much time mourning. They got busy, analyzing the spacecraft’s final data.
The Cassini mission ended September 15, 2017, after more than 13 years orbiting Saturn (SN Online: 9/15/17). The spacecraft’s final 22 orbits, dubbed the Grand Finale, sent Cassini into the potentially dangerous region between the gas giant and its rings, and its final orbit sent it directly into Saturn’s atmosphere.
That perspective helped solve mysteries about the planet and its moons that could not be tackled any other way, scientists said March 19 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
“In so many ways, the Grand Finale orbits provided information that was totally unexpected,” said Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “So many of our models were not correct.”
Here are five things we now know and a few outstanding mysteries.
1. Saturn’s clouds go deep
Those final daredevil orbits allowed Cassini to measure the gravity of Saturn and its rings independent of one another. Looking at the planet’s gravity field alone revealed that the swirling bands of clouds penetrate much deeper into the planet than expected.
Astronomers this month announced a similar discovery for an even larger gas giant, reporting that the Juno spacecraft, which is orbiting Jupiter, had found that the planet’s rotating cloud belts reach roughly 3,000 kilometers below the top of the atmosphere.
Saturn’s clouds reach a few times deeper than that. “This was an astonishing result,” Spilker said.
“People used to think that maybe Saturn was just a slightly smaller version of Jupiter, but it’s evident that that’s not the case,” says planetary scientist Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, who was not involved in the gravity measurements. The difference speaks to how diverse planets are, he says. “Every place you look, everywhere we’ve been to, it’s just been so dramatically different and unique.”
2. Ring rain is eroding the innermost ring
Grains of ice from the rings are raining down into Saturn’s atmosphere, Cassini’s final orbits confirmed. This “ring rain” idea has been suggested since the 1980s, but only by tasting the atmosphere and directly sampling the space between Saturn and the rings could Cassini confirm the rains are real.
In its last five full orbits, Cassini found a zoo of organic molecules in and just above Saturn’s atmosphere, said planetary scientist Kelly Miller of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The spacecraft found a lot of water, which wasn’t surprising — water makes up about 90 percent of the rings. But there were also a lot of hydrocarbons similar to propane, plus some methane and sulfur-bearing molecules.
The types of molecules became less well-mixed as the spacecraft looked deeper into Saturn’s atmosphere, which is what would happen if the particles came from the rings and sank at different speeds. The researchers think this material is especially raining from Saturn’s D ring, the thin innermost ring. Other Cassini data suggest this ring is losing mass.
“The D ring is slowly being eroded away and going into the planet,” Spilker said.
3. Organics could explain mysterious ring hues
The organics in the ring rain could solve a debate about why Saturn’s rings appear reddish in some spots.
“We’ve had this debate going on for a couple of years now — are they red because of good old-fashioned rust like Mars, or because of the same kinds of organic materials … that make carrots and tomatoes and watermelon red?” said planetary scientist Jeff Cuzzi of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “To me, this answers the question of what makes the rings red: It’s organics.”
It’s still not clear where the organics come from, though. They could be created within the rings, or they could come from cosmic dust from the tails of comets. Miller and her colleagues are comparing the ring rain molecules with data on comet 67P, which the Rosetta spacecraft observed, to see how well they match up (SN: 11/11/17, p. 32).
4. Titan’s “magic islands” aren’t islands, or bubbles
Mysterious disappearing features in the lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan are caused by sunlight reflecting off giant waves, said planetary scientist Alexander Hayes of Cornell University.
SUN GLINT This infrared image taken by Cassini in 2014 shows a bright, mirrorlike reflection (yellow spot at upper left) in Kraken Mare, a northern sea on Saturn’s moon Titan. That reflection combined with radar data suggests that what were thought to be mysterious disappearing islands in the sea are actually tall waves.
JPL-CALTECH/NASA, UNIV. OF ARIZONA, UNIV. OF IDAHO
These features were named “magic islands” when they were first spotted in 2014. As recently as April 2017, planetary scientists thought they had the islands solved: They seemed to be the result of champagnelike bubbles of nitrogen burbling through the moon’s methane and ethane seas (SN Online: 4/18/17).
But Hayes presented newly analyzed data from August 2014, when Cassini looked at Kraken Mare, the moon’s largest northern sea, in radar and infrared wavelengths within two hours of each other. The radar images showed a magic island, and the infrared ones showed a peak in brightness at the same spot.
Because the observations were taken two hours apart, the island probably couldn’t have been due to bubbles, Hayes said — bubbles would pop or disperse too quickly. Instead, he thinks the brightening could be the glint of sunlight reflecting directly off of giant waves on the lake, like how the ocean ripples with gold at sunset. Simulations of Titan’s atmosphere suggest these waves could be raised by winds as slow as 0.5 meters per second, which would barely move a wind vane on Earth.
5. Enceladus’ plumes may brighten by the pull of another moon
Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus has plumes that may be driven by nudges from another moon.
The spurts of liquid water were discovered in 2006. Over the next six years, scientists noticed that the plumes varied in brightness (a proxy for how much material is gushing from the moon) on a daily cycle, probably driven by Saturn’s different positions in Enceladus’ sky.
Then, in 2015 some researchers noted that the plumes’ overall brightness had been decreasing since the beginning of the Cassini mission.
One possible explanation was that the plumes changed with Saturn’s seasons. Another was that ice built up in the vents, clogging them and decreasing the flow. But looking at the full 13-year dataset, planetary scientist Francis Nimmo found that the plumes grow brighter in a regular cycle every four and 11 years. The pattern is too coherent to be explained by clogged vents, said Nimmo, of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Oddly, the plume grew brighter in 2017, so the seasonal explanation doesn’t fit either.
The variations could be explained by a neighboring moon, Dione. Every time Dione and Enceladus line up, their gravitational stress on each other could force Enceladus’ vents open a bit more, causing the plumes to grow brighter.
Unsolved enigmas
So far, analyzing data from Cassini hasn’t answered all of scientists’ questions. Is Enceladus the only moon with plumes? Dione showed signs of activity, too, but Cassini wasn’t able to confirm it. How thick is Enceladus’ ice sheet? Why are Titan’s smaller lakes full of clear, pure methane, when scientists expected the lakes to be clogged with hydrocarbon silt?
Even though the spacecraft is gone, it left decades’ worth of data to sift through in search of answers. “Cassini is going to keep on giving as long as we keep looking,” Hayes said.
Editors’ note: This story was updated on March 21, 2018, to include the affiliations of Jeff Cuzzi and Francis Nimmo.
In 2005, astronaut Leroy Chiao was commander of the International Space Station for six and a half months. During a spacewalk with cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov, the two were installing navigation antennas. They were 230 miles above Earth, traveling at over 17,000 miles per hour, when something unusual caught Chiao’s eye.
“I saw some lights that seemed to be in a line and it was almost like an upside-down check mark, and I saw them fly by and thought it was awfully strange,” Chiao told The Huffington Post.
Chiao’s fellow spacewalker, Sharipov, hadn’t seen the lights because he was facing the opposite direction.
This experience, recreated in the above video (and still image below), launches “NASA’s Unexplained Files,” one of several programs presented as part of Science Channel’s week-long “Are We Alone?“ series, beginning March 2.
A down-to-Earth explanation is offered for Chiao’s sighting: the bright lights of a fishing boat hundreds of miles below him. But is that the only possible interpretation of what the astronaut saw?
It’s easy for many to have no doubt that he witnessed an intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. But Chiao doesn’t believe there’s ever been any tangible evidence that someone else is visiting Earth or has done so in the past.
“I’m skeptical of claims that we’ve been visited by aliens from another planet or other dimension, but I don’t rule it out 100 percent. I have an open mind and I do believe there’s other life in the universe.
“If there is life out there that’s so much more advanced than we are and they know either how to travel great distances in short amounts of time, or they’re able to come from a parallel universe into ours, why don’t they just come and show themselves?”
“NASA’s Unexplained Files” episodes highlight possible out-of-this world UFOs either seen or photographed by astronauts over many years.
An alleged photographic piece of UFO evidence occurred on the 1972 Apollo 16 moon mission when astronauts returned to Earth with several film cannisters, one of which showed something intriguing above the lunar surface — something that looks very much like a “classic” flying saucer.
Watch this clip about the Apollo 16 object from ‘NASA’s Unexplained Files’:
Throughout the week, “Are We Alone?” targets both believers and skeptics with tantalizing presentations of:
“NASA’s Unexplained Files“ — exploring unusual discoveries and possible UFO sightings.
“Close Encounters“ — focusing on unsolved UFO stories and reports from around the world.
“Alien Planet Earths“ — zeroing in on the ongoing, exciting search for Earth’s twin planets that may harbor life.
“Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman“ — seeking answers to the question “Is God An Alien Concept?”
ANNOTATION: Astronaut Leroy Chiao contacted this writer to clarify the fishing boat theory about what he saw in 2005: “One minor point is that it wasn’t just one fishing boat, but a line of them strung out along the South American coast. That’s why it looked like five lights from the ISS.”
“Are We Alone?” week premieres on the Science Channel, Sunday, March 2 at 10:00 p.m. Check your local listings.
Airbus is testing a big harpoon to snare rogue or redundant satellites and pull them out of the sky.
The 1m-long projectile would be attached, through a strong tether, to a chase spacecraft.
Once the target was captured and under control, the chase vehicle would then drag its prey down into the atmosphere to burn to destruction.
Airbus has been working on the concept for a number of years now, developing ever bigger systems.
It is a response to the growing problem of orbital junk - old pieces of hardware that continue to circle the globe and which now pose a collision threat to operational satellites.
Image copyrightESImage captionEnvisat artwork: Care would be needed to avoid hitting any pressurised tanks onboard
Something in the region of 20,000 items of 10cm or larger are currently being tracked.
The latest Airbus harpoon is being designed with the capability to capture one of the biggest rogue items of the lot - Europe's defunct Envisat Earth observation platform.
This 8-tonne behemoth died suddenly in orbit in 2012. "Envisat is the outlier," explained advanced project engineer Alastair Wayman.
"If we can design a harpoon that can cope with Envisat, then it should be able to cope with all other types of spacecraft including the many rocket upper-stages that remain in orbit."
Media captionAlastair Wayman: "We would tow the target satellite out of orbit"
The testing at the aerospace company’s facility in Stevenage, UK, involves firing the harpoon, using compressed air, into a panel that is representative of the kinds of material used to build satellite structures.
Typically, this takes the form of 3cm-thick, composite honeycomb panels that incorporate a lot of aluminium.
"The harpoon goes through these panels like a hot knife through butter," said Mr Wayman.
"Once the tip is inside, it has a set of barbs that open up and stop the harpoon from coming back out. We'd then de-tumble the satellite with a tether on the other end."
This is where harpoons should come into their own, over other methods of capture such as nets and robotic arms. A harpoon is relatively simple. You line up the target and shoot.
"Many of these targets will be tumbling and if you were to use a robotic arm, say, that involves a lot of quite complex motions to follow your target," Mr Wayman explained.
"Whereas, with the harpoon, all you have to do is sit a distance away, wait for the target to rotate underneath you, and at the right moment fire your harpoon. And because it's a really quick event, it takes out a lot of the complexity."
Image captionThe miniature harpoon to be tested on the upcoming RemoveDebris mission
You still have to bring the tumbling satellite under control using thrusters on the chase vehicle - but computer simulations show this should be possible.
The European Space Agency, which is responsible for Envisat, is considering all options at the moment, and the demonstration missions that fly in the next few years will almost certainly go for easier, more cooperative targets first. Indeed, a miniature version of the Airbus harpoon is set to launch next month on a mission called RemoveDebris.
This demonstrator satellite, developed at the Surrey Space Centre, will carry its own piece of junk which it will release and then attempt to retrieve. It will trial a net, but will perform a harpoon test as well to further knowledge about how such systems will behave in the weightless environment of space.
For the big harpoon back in Stevenage, it is now ready to move to its next development stage. This will involve firing the projectile over a distance of 25m, the sort of separation over which the real flight model would have to work.
2 Weeks Before His Death, Stephen Hawking Predicted ‘The End Of The Universe’
2 Weeks Before His Death, Stephen Hawking Predicted ‘The End Of The Universe’
According to a report by the Sunday Times, the world-renowned astrophysicists’ co-authored a mathematical study in which he and his colleagues sought to prove the multiverse theory, and how different universes exist out there.
In addition, he also predicted how the universe we currently live in would eventually fade to darkness as stars throughout the cosmos run out of energy.
His last scientific paper—titled ‘A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation’—is currently being reviewed by a leading scientific journal and is expected to be accepted for publication shortly.
A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation collects concepts from his theory of the lack of limits, which states that the universe expanded from a small point after the Big Bang.
As explained by the Sunday Times, this new proposal suggests that this great explosion was only one of an infinite number of explosions that occurred, each of which created its own universe.
In this context, Thomas Hertog, who collaborated with Hawking, explained that the work makes the multiverse easier to understand, by making it “a verifiable scientific framework.”
However, upon closer inspection, and as explained by follow-up articles published by Gizmodoand the Register, the study, which is yet to be peer-reviewed actually leans away from the multiverse theory, as the two scientists concluded; “we conjecture that the exit from eternal inflation does not produce an infinite fractal-like multiverse, but is finite and reasonably smooth”.
However, in the study, research shows that, if the correct mathematical tools are used, a space probe capable of discovering its existence could be sent. These mathematical tools are explored in the new study waiting to be peer-reviewed.
If this proposal of the British astrophysicist had succeeded while Hawking was still alive, Hertog assured that it would have allowed him to obtain the Nobel prize that “he had wanted for so long.”
“He has often been nominated for the Nobel and should have won it. Now he never can.”
However, this will not happen since the recognition is not delivered posthumously.
Meanwhile, the latest theory developed by the scientist is still being analyzed by specialists of the US scientific journal Physical Review Letters, who must give their approval before it is published.
A number of scientists around the world have said how Professor Hawking’s work may represent the breakthrough that cosmology needs, as it’s the first theory that may be verifiable through experiments.
If you happened to be alive 70,000 years ago, you might have witnessed an extremely rare event: a duo of rogue stars passing relatively close to the Sun — close enough to gravitationally disrupt the comets and asteroids in the outskirts of the solar system.
Artistic depiction of a brown dwarf.
Image credits: NASA / JPL.
In a time when humans were just leaving Africa and Neanderthals were still around, two small reddish stars were approaching our solar system. We now call them Scholz’s star, after the astronomer who discovered them (Ralf-Dieter Scholz). The system is currently some 20 light-years away from Earth, but 70,000 years ago, it was much closer. A team of astronomers now analyzed the orbit of nearly 340 objects in the solar system with hyperbolic orbits (very open, not quite typical elliptical), finding that the trajectory of some of them was influenced by Scholtz’s star. They report that some comets and asteroids in the Oort Cloud — the outer limit of our solar system — were disrupted by the passing of the star.
“Using numerical simulations we have calculated the radiants or positions in the sky from which all these hyperbolic objects seem to come,” explains Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, who together with the other coauthors publishes the results in the MNRAS Letters journal.
“In principle,” he adds, “one would expect those positions to be evenly distributed in the sky, particularly if these objects come from the Oort cloud; however, what we find is very different: a statistically significant accumulation of radiants. The pronounced over-density appears projected in the direction of the constellation of Gemini, which fits the close encounter with Scholz´s star.”
Despite the name, Scholz’s star is actually a binary system consisting of a red dwarf and brown dwarf, with the entire system having just 0.15 solar masses. Because it was so small, it didn’t disturb all the hyperbolic objects in the solar system. Authors explain that the disturbance might also just be a coincidence, completely unrelated to Schultz’s star — but since both the timing and the location of the disturbance fit so well, it’s highly unlikely.
Scholtz’s star passed approximately 52,000 astronomical units away from the Sun (1 astronomical unit is equivalent to the distance between the Earth and the Sun) — the equivalent of 0.82 lightyears. It’s estimated that a star passes through the Oort Cloud every 100,000 years. However, an approach closer than 50,000 astronomical units only happens every 9 million years, according to current models.
The results have been published in two papers:
Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, Raúl de la Fuente Marcos, Sverre J Aarseth. Where the Solar system meets the solar neighbourhood: patterns in the distribution of radiants of observed hyperbolic minor bodies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 2018; 476 (1): L1 DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/sly019
Eric E. Mamajek, Scott A. Barenfeld, Valentin D. Ivanov, Alexei Y. Kniazev, Petri Väisänen, Yuri Beletsky, Henri M. J. Boffin. The closest known flyby of a star to the solar system. The Astrophysical Journal, 2015; 800 (1): L17 DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/800/1/L17
It’s the strangest human mummy you’ll likely ever see, and it’s not an alien.
The alien-like mummified specimen from Atacama region of Chile.
Credits: Bhattacharya et al. 2018.
In 2003, researchers found an incredibly bizarre mummy in Chile. Measuring a mere 6 inches, with an extremely elongated skull and several extreme abnormalities, it only remotely looked human. The questions came in fast, and they poured in: what is? Is it human — and if it is human, why does it look so strange? The specimen was auctioned off to a Spanish businessman which delayed proper studies but now, results from the first comprehensive analysis are finally in.
“This was an unusual specimen with some fairly extraordinary claims put forward. It would be an example of how to use modern science to answer the question what is it?” says senior author Garry Nolan from Stanford University.
Not an alien
Thankfully, Ata, as the skeleton was named (short for Atacama), contains some high-quality DNA which researchers were able to sequence. They compared Ata’s DNA with human and non-human primate reference genomes, including chimpanzee and rhesus macaque. To the chagrin of UFO hunters, researchers learned that Ata is very much human and even more — she has Chilean ancestry.
DNA results will certainly disappoint UFO conspiracists, but Ata is very much human — although she’s incredibly small and suffers from several malformations.
Image credits: Garry Nolan.
Although researchers believed Ata was a few years old, Nolan now believes she was either stillborn or only lived for a few days. It’s unclear exactly when Ata lived, though the skeleton seems to be at least several decades old — probably some 40 years.
Next, researchers moved on to look for more clues regarding Ata’s extremely short stature and unusual features, which aside from the obvious skull malformation, include an abnormal rib count and premature bone age. They found multiple mutations in genes associated with diseases such as dwarfism, scoliosis, and musculoskeletal abnormalities. Surprisingly, all these malformations can be explained with a relatively short list of gene mutations in genes associated with bone development, Nolan says.
However, Ata is more than just an interesting specimen. Since she had the grave misfortune of suffering such severe abnormalities, she can teach us quite a bit about how the gene mutations can affect the human body.
“This is a great example of how studying ancient samples can teach us how to analyze modern day medical samples” says co-author Atul Butte, from the UCSF.
Aside from her skeletal malformations, Ata also probably suffered from something called congenital diaphragmatic hernia — a fairly common, but also life-threatening condition where a baby’s diaphragm doesn’t form correctly. Nolan told The Guardian:
“She was so badly malformed as to be unable to feed. In her condition, she would have ended up in the neonatal ICU, but given where the specimen was found, such things were simply not available,” he said.
“While this started as a story about aliens, and went international, it’s really a story of a human tragedy. A woman had a malformed baby, it was preserved in a manner and then ‘hocked’ or sold as a strange artefact. It turns out to be human, with a fascinating genetic story from which we might learn something important to help others. May she rest in peace.”
Journal Reference: Bhattacharya S, Li J, Sockell A, Kan M, Bava F, Chen, S, Ávila-Arcos M, Ji X, Smith E, Asadi N, Lachman R, Lam H, Bustamante C, Butte A, Nolan G. 2018. Whole genome sequencing of Atacama skeleton shows novel mutations linked with dysplasia. Genome Research doi: 10.1101/gr.223693.117.
Edit:In its original form, this article had an error regarding Ata’s age.
My wife and I have made watching Saturday Night Live a ritual in our home. Say what you will about the quality of SNL today in relation to the ‘good old days,’ the show still has its finger on the pulse of American culture. As we sat on our couch this last Saturday night, beers in hand, host Bill Hader, and the SNL cast put on a sketch about alien abduction. My wife and I realized at that moment, when our eyes met, our perception of anything related to the subject of aliens or UFOs was no longer passive, and that SNL was playing a role in establishing this active participation.
Neither my wife nor I have ever had a strange paranormal experience. We have never seen a UFO, let alone been aboard one. We have never seen aliens or ghosts or Bigfoot. My personal and scholarly interest is that of the UFO community, the individuals who form the subcultural collective which engages with the UFO phenomenon and attached discourse. My wife, who has stood by me by some curious miracle, quietly, and with great patience, tolerates my Ufological interests. Yet, by association alone, or her polite way of listening to me talk about the latest UFO scandal or phone call I had to make to a UFO witness, the cultural impact of UFOs seems to have rubbed off on her.
When Roger, the Reiki healer, played by Bill Hader, explains why a tourist couple visiting Sedona should not hike up to the top of Spirit Rock because of extraterrestrial visitors, we both sat quietly through the entire sketch. While the sketch itself was a bit of a dud, compared to Kate McKinnon’s internet-breaking alien abduction sketch with Ryan Gosling, we both had the exact same question on our minds, but were being polite and refrained from hitting ‘Pause’ on the PVR.
Hader’s Roger, playing to a fairly common Ufological paradigm, goes on to explain that he often climbs to the top of the mountain to meditate and connect with his spirit and body. It all went south one night, however, when “she revealed herself…an alien lady with a head shaped like Mr. Peanut.” The alien “initiates intercourse…because they needed DNA for their little babies.”
However, due to the alien’s unfamiliarity with human anatomy, she flipped Roger over, “spread [his] cakes and blasted [his] Raisinette with a turkey baster.” Roger awakes in his bedroom after the experience with his pants on backwards, and on his pillow is a mint with a little note that read, “Great Job!” When the tourist couple inquires as to why they probed him, obviously pointing out the whole anatomy issue, Roger responds by saying, “I guess they had to figure out the lay of the land.” The sketch continues on with strange lights hovering from above, one of the SNL cast being beamed up to a UFO, and Roger getting to hold his new alien baby.
Mysterious lights in the sky, or just some clever photography?
When the sketch concluded, I managed to speak first, “Is there more UFO stuff on TV, or are we just noticing it more?”
My wife responded with,
“I think we just notice it more. We are prone to noticing it more because it is now a part of our lives; I notice it more. When people talk about UFOs or aliens or something paranormal, I usually stop and listen. I’m tuned into it more, as if it is starting to matter to me. This is your fault.”
“with its weekly live broadcasts, the show can swiftly distill and cement public perceptions of current events.”
From a pop culture standpoint, it still has significant cachet no matter how “good” or “bad” the sketches or cast are. In regard to its coverage of UFOs and aliens, the show usually sticks to the usual and simple fare, however, it does make some interesting ideological claims. Furthermore, it puts the UFO debate into the pop culture realm, but in an approachable way.
Four years ago, Hader was in a sketch featuring actor Jon Hamm in which he was an alien poorly disguised as a sports announcer named Greg. The sketch featured Greg ‘infecting’ various others and turning them into aliens in order to invade the planet.
I previously mentioned the famous Kate McKinnon and Ryan Gosling sketch, that aired on December 5th, 2015, which involves three alien abductees being interviewed by Pentagon staffers concerning their experiences. On September 30th, 2017, Gosling returned to SNL to reprise his role with McKinnon to be interviewed again by Pentagon staff due to the lot of them being abducted a second time. Coincidently, the famous New York Times article concerning a secret Pentagon program which looked into “advanced aerial threats,” in other words, UFOs, was published on December 16th of the same year.
It seems that the writers of SNL sketches do play to the conspiracy paradigm present in UFO discourse. The interviewers in both sketches are NSA agents and have been tasked with getting to the bottom of “three confirmed cases” of alien abduction. Furthermore, the abductees in both sketches have vastly different experiences. Ryan Gosling and Cecily Strong’s characters both enjoy peacefully divine interactions with the beautiful aliens bathed in light, while McKinnon’s character is on a different part of the ship, the lower decks perhaps, where little alien grays poke and prod at her, steal her pants, and stare at her while she pees in a bowl. As McKinnon puts it, she didn’t think she was “dealing with the top brass.” This is another common experiencer narrative; the stark difference between those who are contacted for some prophetic or higher purpose, and those who experience horrifying and frightening abductions.
They’re here…
This most recent alien sketch involving Hader plays upon the alien-human hybrid plot, which arguably gained great fame when Dr. David Jacobs published his book, The Threat, in 1997. While stories of breeding programs and the harvesting human ovum and sperm existed in the 1960’s, Jacob’s work showcased many individuals who claim to have taken part in such a program, and were continuously ‘re-abducted’ to see, hold and bond with their hybrid children, or to undergo more sexual acts.
More recently, the story of David Huggins hit the news cycle in mid-2017. Huggins claims to have engaged in sexual intercourse with a female extraterrestrial for the purpose of having a hybrid child, and a recently released documentary entitled Love and Saucers tells his story.
While many within the UFO community may get upset with SNL for turning these often frightening and heartbreaking experiences into a joke, the purpose of the show is to point to our collective cultural landscape and make fun of it. When SNL targets White House staff or some current cultural issue, we take it for granted. It is truly a right of passage for every American President to have one of the SNL cast to play him or her (soon hopefully). George W. Bush had Will Ferrel, Barack Obama had Fred Armison and Jay Pharoah, and Donald Trump has Alec Baldwin. Before every popular cultural event such as the Super Bowl, The Academy Awards, and St. Patrick’s Day, the cast and writers of SNL put it through the ringer, and ensure we see the humor in our common traditions, ideologies, paradigms, and assumed truths. The purpose of parody and farce is to satirize, to allow us to giggle at something truthful and even scary.
I am not suggesting that Saturday Night Live is some Ufological savior. Nor am I suggesting that the butt of their jokes, the UFO community and the countless people who have had strange paranormal experiences, should relax and laugh a little. I think we need to appreciate that, for better or worse, we are becoming more comfortable with the realization that the “truths” we used to hold dear are beginning to shift and change. If the show is a cultural mirror, a silly twisted mirror, but a mirror none the less, with every UFO related sketch, our reflection becomes a little more otherworldly. With every UFO sketch that we laugh at, it is also informing the broader popular culture that UFO phenomenon is something worth talking about. Perhaps SNL is unknowingly normalizing the UFO phenomenon; if we laugh about it, we can also talk about it.
Perhaps the more we engage with the UFO phenomenon, the more it seems to show up in our regular lives on Saturday nights. Regardless of whether you are a fan of the show or not, SNL continues to question and poke fun at UFOs and aliens. In some way, it normalizes the strange in its various sketches and turns UFOs and the related phenomenon into approachable.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETDe herkomst van een raadselachtige mini-mummie uit Chili, die door velen als een buitenaards wezentje werd gezien, is bekend. Het piepkleine, slechts 15 centimeter lange gemummificeerde skelet met vreemd uitgerekte schedel en grote oogkassen is menselijk, vrouwelijk om precies te zijn. Dat staat vast na vijf jaar intensief DNA-onderzoek en vergelijking met het genoom van chimpansee en resusaap.
De ontdekking in een verlaten, gortdroog en heet oord in de Chileense Atacama-woestijn baarde in 2003 wereldwijd opzien. Er werd zelfs een documentaire gewijd aan het alientje, dat Ata werd gedoopt naar de vindplaats. De film is nu definitief sciencefiction. In werkelijkheid had de kleine gemuteerde meid, die vermoedelijk een jaar of veertig geleden veel te vroeg werd geboren, een reeks genetische afwijkingen, die onder meer leidden tot misvorming van de schedel.
Californische wetenschappers hebben dat in het vakblad Genome Research beschreven. Van veel van de aangetoonde gendefecten was bekend dat ze een rol speelden bij dwerggroei, verkromming van de ruggengraat (scoliose) en deformatie van spieren en botten. Andere geconstateerde mutaties waren wel in verband gebracht met het ontstaan van bepaalde ziektebeelden maar nog niet met dit soort ontwikkelingsstoornissen.
Bij het eerste onderzoek viel meteen op dat Ata tien in plaats van twaalf paar ribben had en dat sommige skeletdelen van een zes- of zevenjarig kind leken. Zou het kunnen dat zij ondanks alle misvormingen zo lang heeft geleefd? Nee, zeggen de specialisten dankzij het uit een rib gehaald erfelijk materiaal. Ata was een foetus en leed aan een zeldzame ziekte die botten snel doet verouderen.
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“Bijna alles wat we denken te weten over de piramides is onjuist.” Waar werden ze dan wel voor gebruikt?
“Bijna alles wat we denken te weten over de piramides is onjuist.” Waar werden ze dan wel voor gebruikt?
Bijna alles wat we denken te weten over de piramides is onjuist: het doel, de leeftijd, de bouwers en locaties. Die boodschap zal dr. Sam Osmanagic komende zaterdag verkondigen tijdens zijn BOLDtalks-lezing in Dubai.
Osmanagic claimt in Bosnië en Herzegovina in de buurt van de plaats Visoko de grootste door mensen gemaakte piramides op aarde te hebben gevonden.
Sinds de ontdekking in april 2005 zijn meer dan 3000 vrijwilligers uit 62 landen bezig geweest opgravingen te verrichten in het gebied.
Complexe energiemachines
Volgens dr. Osmanagic zijn piramides niet alleen gebouwd in Egypte en Mexico, maar over de hele wereld.
Piramides zijn geen graftombes voor de farao’s, maar complexe energiemachines, aldus de amateurarcheoloog.
De oudste piramides, die in Bosnië en Indonesië, zijn ruim 30.000 jaar geleden gebouwd en dit verandert de tijdlijn voor hoogontwikkelde beschavingen, stelt hij.
De energie van piramides werd gebruikt voor interstellaire communicatie, claimt Osmanagic.
Genezing
Daarnaast ondersteunden energievelden in de piramide volgens hem genezing en de moleculaire structuur van water en voedsel. Ook zou de energie mentale vermogens versterken.
Sam Osmanagic is directeur van het centrum voor archeologie aan de American University in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Hij heeft 16 boeken geschreven over piramides over de hele wereld en oude beschavingen, die in 17 talen zijn vertaald.
Toen de mensen eindelijk aankwamen op Mars met een tiental grote raketten, bleek dat er zich al een ondergrondse beschaving op de planeet bevond.
De regering van de Marsbewoners werd gevormd door tien verschillende mannen die een leider hadden gekozen die bekenstond als Elon.
We hebben ondertussen diverse artikelen gepubliceerd over het fenomeen Elon Musk. De held, de stripfiguur die alles kan en de meest onvoorstelbare capriolen uithaalt in de ruimte zoals het lanceren van een Tesla auto.
Niet zo vreemd natuurlijk dat er snel stemmen opgingen die zeiden dat Elon Musk niet een bepaald iemand is, maar meer een instituut, waarbij het karakter Musk wordt vertolkt door diverse acteurs.
Net zoals Harry Potter of Buffy The Vampire Slayer het ons mogelijk maken om de verschrikkingen van de moderne wereld onder ogen te zien door alles meer behapbaar en te overwinnen te maken, zo biedt Elon Musk ons een blik op de toekomst waar technologie niet al onze banen vernietigt, waar het kapitalisme niet alleen maar onze omgeving kapotmaakt en waar niet slechts zes mensen 99 procent van 's werelds rijkdommen beheren. Door de visie van "Musk" kunnen wij geloven dat ondanks dat alle voorgaande dingen gebeuren, we in ieder geval verder kunnen door te gaan wonen op Mars en ons te vermengen met robots.
Volgens voornoemde Tim Dunlop is de naam Elon Musk bedacht door een striptekenaar, maar nu komen er aanwijzingen boven tafel dat die naam misschien al veel eerder is bedacht.
En dan komen we uit bij de beruchte Duitse raketgeleerde en Nazi, Dr. Wernher von Braun. Deze man was nauw betrokken bij de oprichting van het Amerikaanse NASA. Hetzelfde NASA dat recentelijk in samenwerking met Musk een raket lanceerde die tevens een Tesla auto met zich meedroeg. Dit instituut is louter en alleen in het leven geroepen om de mensheid te misleiden zoals we schreven in een eerder artikel:
Sinds de oprichting van NASA in 1958 is er alles aan gedaan om de occulte oorsprong van dit instituut voor het publiek verborgen te houden. De oorsprong die direct leidt naar wat men wel het “slechtste mens ooit” op aarde noemt, Alistair Crowley. De hoogste rangen binnen NASA werden gedomineerd door leden van de geheime genootschappen zoals de Vrijmetselaars en voormalige Nazi’s, waarvan de meest bekende Wernher von Braun is. Dan is duidelijk dat je op iedere persconferentie wordt voorgelogen, dat er allang een geheime ruimtevloot bestaat, dat er mensen op Mars wonen en dat buitenaardsen overeenkomsten hebben gesloten met overheden. Dat alles wat NASA aan het grote publiek vertelt, gebaseerd is op leugens en dat ze met de technologie zoals ze die tonen aan de buitenwereld nog niet eens de Van Allen Gordel kunnen passeren met bemande ruimtevluchten.
Wat niet erg bekend is bij het grote publiek is dat Wernher von Braun in 1949 een roman schreef met de titel: Project Mars: A Technical Tale.
Het is een roman die speelt in de jaren tachtig waarbij de mens voor het eerst een poging doet om de planeet Mars te koloniseren. De reis wordt gemaakt met tien grote ruimteschepen en was alleen mogelijk door een verregaande internationale samenwerking. In die tijd is de Derde Wereldoorlog al achter de rug en bestaat er één wereldregering die dit alles mogelijk maakt. De grote schepen bevonden zich in een omloopbaan om de aarde en er waren meer dan 1.000 vluchten nodig vanaf de aarde om deze voor te bereiden en te bevoorraden voor de lange reis naar Mars.
Echter, wanneer de menselijke expeditie uiteindelijk aankomt op Mars, ontdekken ze dat er daar al een vreedzame beschaving woont, niet aan de oppervlakte van de planeet, maar ondergronds.
Er komt echter iets bijzonders naar voren wanneer het boek rond hoofdstuk 24 beschrijft wie er de leiding heeft over de beschaving op Mars.
De regering bestaat feitelijk uit 10 mannen en de door hen gekozen leider werd de Elon genoemd. Verder zijn er twee volksvertegenwoordigingen die de wetgeving mogelijk maken die door de Elon en zijn kabinet moeten worden uitgevoerd.
De vraag is dan ook: hoe komt een Wernher von Braun in 1948/49 aan de bijzondere naam Elon? Het is nu niet bepaald een veel voorkomende naam en de oorsprong van die naam is Joods en betekent iets als: een stevige eik. Ook in Afrika komt die naam af en toe voor en daar betekent het: God houdt van mij.
Heeft Wernher von Braun die naam verzonnen of was het ook al in die dagen onderdeel van de plannen van de geheime ruimtevloot en wist Von Braun dat die naam Elon later zou worden gebruikt voor een fictief karakter die te maken krijgt met het namens de mensheid mogelijk maken om naar Mars te reizen.
De naam lijkt te bijzonder om zomaar op toevalligheid te berusten, mede omdat we dus nu te maken hebben met een Elon Musk.
Nu wordt misschien gesuggereerd dat Elon Musk is vernoemd naar de fictieve leider van de planeet Mars omdat zijn ouders het boek hadden gelezen van Von Braun. Ook die vlieger gaat niet op, want nadat hij het boek had geschreven wilde niet één uitgever in Amerika zich daaraan wagen en is het pas jaren na de dood van Von Braun dat het boek in 2006 uiteindelijk werd uitgegeven. Jaren nadat Elon Musk was geboren.
Von Braun wist heel veel over wat er zich allemaal in de achtergrond afspeelde. Daarom is het zo goed als zeker dat hij wist dat er in latere jaren een echt Mars project zou ontstaan en dat de naam Elon daar een belangrijke rol zou spelen. Wat in dat geval nogmaals een bevestiging is dat Elon Musk niet een echt iemand is, maar een fictief karakter dat door een aantal verschillende acteurs wordt gespeeld.
In dat licht is de samenwerking met overheidsinstelling NASA ook niet vreemd, terwijl eerder dit een privé aangelegenheid zou zijn. In onze ogen is dit laatste wederom bedoeld om een bepaalde indruk te wekken, alsof (rijke) privé personen dit soort initiatieven ongestoord zouden kunnen ontplooien. Alle particuliere initiatieven mislukken om uiteenlopende redenen en pas als Elon samenwerkt met overheidsinstelling NASA mag het ineens wel een succes zijn.
Wernher Von Braun is verder natuurlijk ook bekend geworden door de bekentenissen die hij deed tegenover Dr. Carol Rosin, waarover wij eerder schreven:
Ongeveer drie jaar voor zijn dood kwam hij in aanraking met Dr. Carol Rosin. Misschien kreeg hij aan het eind van zijn leven iets van wroeging, want haar vertelde hij een groot aantal geheimen. Om de gigantische kosten en de mega verdiensten voor de ruimtewapensystemen enigszins te rechtvaardigen en de agenda voor de New World Order te promoten, zouden er kunstmatige vijanden worden gecreëerd.
Eerst zou dat Rusland zijn. Daarna de terroristen. Vervolgens de landen in het Midden-Oosten. Dan de laatste troefkaart: Een bedreiging uit de ruimte.
Hier een korte Nederlands ondertitelde video van Carol Rosin waarin zij haar verhaal vertelt:
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GOUDKLEURIGE UFO'S WAARGENOMEN BIJ SEDONA ( video )
GOUDKLEURIGE UFO'S WAARGENOMEN BIJ SEDONA ( VIDEO )
De plaats Sedona in de Amerikaanse staat Arizona heeft een bijzondere reputatie omdat daar geregeld vreemde dingen gebeuren.
Zo schijnen er diverse vortexen te zijn en is het ook een plek waar de scheidingen tussen dimensies lijken te verdwijnen.
Sedona in de staat Arizona staat bekend als een soort magische plek waar jaarlijks duizenden toeristen naartoe komen om ook iets mee te krijgen van de aparte sfeer daar.
Ongeveer een maand geleden schreven wij een artikel over een man die er klaarblijkelijk in was geslaagd om in Sedona een poort naar een andere dimensie te openen om daarna spoorloos te verdwijnen. Voor zover wij kunnen nagaan is de man tot op dit moment nog steeds spoorloos en vermoeden sommigen dan ook dat hij erin is geslaagd om een andere dimensie te bereiken, maar niet in staat om terug te keren.
De volgende waarneming is afkomstig van Mufon en staat daar geregistreerd onder nummer 90899.
Afgelopen weekend was een man op bezoek in Sedona en zit een hapje te eten in Sinuaga Plaza aldaar, op de tweede verdieping, vanwaar hij een mooi uitzicht heeft over de bergen.
Hij besluit enkele foto's te nemen en wanneer hij later thuiskomt en de foto's bekijkt, dan ontdekt hij enkele goudkleurige UFO's op zijn foto's.
De foto's die hij maakte zien er als volgt uit:
Wanneer je goed kijkt op de eerste foto, dan zie je daar in de wolken ook nog een UFO.
Volgens ufoloog Scott Waring is er grote kans dat er zich onder de bergen bij Sedona ondergrondse buitenaardse bases bevinden.
Volgens één van zijn lezers moet er nog ergens een schip verborgen zijn in de wolken:
There's a triangle ship cloaked right above the peak on the mountain.
Nu zien we niet iedere dag goudkleurige UFO's, maar een plek waar ze wel regelmatig worden waargenomen is het bij het ISS ruimtestation.
Hierna een deel uit een eerder artikel uit 2014 waar ook de gouden UFO prominent in beeld komt:
Het lijkt dat de gouden UFO die we dit jaar al verschillende malen zijn tegen gekomen, kind aan huis is bij het ISS.
Terwijl de censuurjongens bij NASA koffiepauze hadden en vergaten de camera uit te zetten, verscheen op 29 augustus wederom de gouden UFO in beeld.
Je ziet de UFO hangen achter de zonnepanelen van het ISS ruimtestation. Grote vraag is natuurlijk of hij van buitenaardse afkomst is of toebehoort aan de geheime ruimtevloot van de Bilderbergers.
Wij hopen op het eerste en ook op dat er misschien zo langzamerhand wat buitenaardse beschavingen zijn die zich zodanig zorgen maken over de psychopaten die op onze aarde aan de touwtjes trekken, dat ingrijpen geoorloofd wordt.
Want een beetje hulp van andere beschavingen om de zaak weer goed op de rit te krijgen, lijkt gezien de huidige wereldsituatie geen overbodige luxe.
Eerst een deel uit het artikel dat wij in januari van dit jaar schreven:
Scott Waring van Ufo Sightings Daily brengt een groot deel van zijn leven door met het publiceren over en het zoeken naar UFO’s en andere vreemde onverklaarbare zaken, vaak gerelateerd aan NASA's archieven. Zo komt hij nu met het volgende verhaal:
"Ik was aan het kijken naar het ISS en luisterde naar de conversatie om erachter te komen waar ze het over hadden. Terwijl ik aan het luisteren was zag ik deze gouden bol die stil hing op ongeveer twee meter afstand van het ISS"
"Ik bleef kijken en zag dat de zonnenpanelen achter de UFO bewogen en ik kon duidelijk zien dat de UFO zich tussen de panelen en de camera bevond. Toen de zonnenpanelen zich langzaam weg van de UFO bewogen werd deze ineens duidelijker zichtbaar tegen de blauwe achtergrond".
"Toen werd het beeld door NASA ineens op volledig blauw gezet. Hadden ook zij de UFO gezien en besloten daarom het scherm op blauw te zetten? Ik denk het wel. Ik heb de onderstaande video opgenomen en ik sta ervoor in dat deze echt is".
En nu, enkele dagen geleden, op 15 augustus werd de volgende opname gemaakt nabij het ISS:
Wat deze UFO’s te zoeken hebben bij het ISS ruimtestation is nog steeds niet duidelijk. Naast deze bijzondere gouden exemplaren worden er bijna dagelijks ook allerlei andere soorten UFO’s waargenomen.
Ondanks dat dit feit nu zelfs door mainstreammedia wordt gerapporteerd, is er nog steeds geen enkele reactie van NASA.
A Compilation Video Of Many Of The UFO Reports Coming Out This Week, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
A Compilation Video Of Many Of The UFO Reports Coming Out This Week, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sightings: March 2018 Location of sightings: worldwide Here are some great compilations of the recent UFO sightings and reports this week coming out of MUFON. Some of them are really eye openers an get you wondering. Thats why we are interested in the subject, the mystery of it all pulls us toward it. Scott C. Waring
MUFON 90433 Wheeling, WV, USA 2017-08-21 MUFON 90438 Lowell, MA, USA 2018-02-26 MUFON 90442 Tampa, FL, USA 2018-02-25 MUFON 90460 Cascais, PT 2012-05-30 MUFON 90496 Naples, FL, USA 2018-02-28 MUFON 90502 Woodstock, IL, USA 2018-02-26 MUFON 90503 Marysville, WA, USA 2018-03-01 MUFON 90523 Dearborn Heights, MI, USA 2018-03-02 MUFON 90552 Baltimore, MD, USA 2017-10-24 MUFON 90555 London, UK 2018-01-16
Glowing Triangular UFO photographed by an airplane passenger over Texas, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Glowing Triangular UFO photographed by an airplane passenger over Texas, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 2018 Location of sighting: Over Texas, USA Source: MUFON #90852 This triangle UFO was seen by a person on a passenger jet over Texas this week. The UFO is glowing, probably due to the angle of the setting sun and the plane. I do not believe that people on the ground could see this craft. Notice the clouds hide 90% of it below. The shape of the triangle and the fact its trying to hide itself is good evidence its real. Excellent video by UFOmania of Youtube. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
A plane passenger was taking pictures of the rising sun at 6:30 am, at the time he did not notice the UFO, but on his way home he noticed in the photos that strange, flaming-looking triangular UFO.
The following footage is a compilation of unidentified flying objects in space captured by the International Space Station camera this year 2018.
Undoubtedly, different objects can be classified as satellites, meteors, space debris or rocket launches but there are a number of objects traveling through space that certainly fall outside these categories.
Check out this remake of a very good sighting that happened over Las Vegas, Nevada back in 2015!
Witness report:
I shot this video from my backyard in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, Nevada on the night of July 16, 2015. I had to remake this amazing video. Watch the UFOs and how they move and you will understand that they cannot possibly be anything conventional. The video begins with them sped up by four times so that you can see how unusual they are and then watch it at actual speed. I spent more than a year skywatching before I ever had any idea at all that these were in the northern sky and that they existed. They are doing this in restricted airspace so it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to assume that they might be ours. If they aren’t ours then whose are they, where are they from and why are they allowed to do this?
Author (UFOs Over Vegas – Steven Barone @ YouTube)
Amazing daytime UFO over Marco Island, Florida 17-Mar-2018
Amazing daytime UFO over Marco Island, Florida 17-Mar-2018
Check out this footage of a cigar-shaped UFO flying over the sky above Marco Island in Florida. This was filmed on 17th March 2018.
Witness report:
To aerial devices traveling towards one another that seemed rather large to me and did not look like anything that I had seen before and struck me odd. I am very observant and detailed I am a firefighter and this is nothing that I have seen before. I was outside throwing the football with my two young boys and noticed two vessels in the sky traveling towards one another. It struck me odd, so much that I stopped throwing the football and took a closer look and realize that these objects were very far away but really really large. And they were traveling towards one another at a very close distance apart from where I was standing it looked as though it might be a close call kind of thing. I did not think it was a large aircraft or drone or anything that I’ve seen before. It look like an (Advil with lights on the side but white & lights were yellow and orange.) normally Aircrafts don’t do that, fly directly forwards each other. The larger of the two UFOs were traveling north and the smaller of the two was traveling south. The one traveling south was leaving trails. And I lost track of the one traveling north and they both basically disappeared. Both of my boys and my ex-wife thought that it was very odd and that I was not making a big deal of nothing. After posting on Facebook my fire chief told me that I should contact you folks and let you see the videos and pictures. I’m just curious what it was? When you see the video you will be able to judge for yourself that it just seems so far away and to be so large in the sky it did not seem right.
Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Colorado Springs 3-Mar-2018
Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Colorado Springs 3-Mar-2018
This UFO sighting was filmed in the sky above Colorado Springs on 3rd March 2018.
Witness report:
Bright large stationary orbs disappearing then reappearing. Vacationing with friends and spouse at Cheyanne Mountain resort in Colorado Springs, Co. After a long day of outside activities we returned to the resort for dinner. Afterwards we went to the outside patio to sit at the fire pit and talk about our day.
µAt first I didn’t notice anything strange but my friend pointed out a weird light in the sky that just hovered. When I looked to where he was pointing I pulled out my iPhone and began recording it. Shortly after a 2nd orb materialized above the 1st. Once they were both visible they simultaneously got brighter and slightly larger. At the time I was confused as to what I was looking at. There was a lake between the orbs and myself and the lights were reflecting off the water. The lower light suddenly disappeared and another orb appeared ABOVE the remaining one.
At one point there were 3 visible orbs that from my angle appeared to be in a relatively straight line. I wondered if maybe they were flares but every orb held it’s place in the sky with no apparent descent or change. I tried at various times to zoom in but it would not hold focus. This went on for over 2min so I felt I was neglecting my group. I stopped the recording and returned to the fire pit, which was about 30’ away.
When I turned back around all of the orbs were gone. I still don’t know what I saw but during the incident the server came out and my friend asked if he knew what it was. His reply was, “I’ve been here for 10 yrs and have never seen anything like it”, which adds to the mystery. There were other vacations making some noise in the pool but we’re no airplanes in the sky and other than those talking it was silent.
Researchers fired laser beams onto a plastic foil to mimic some of the conditions comets encounter as they travel through our solar system and to solve a long-standing mystery.
This bow shock was generated in a laboratory in a magnetized plasma-obstacle interaction, like the one used to solve the mystery of why comets emit X-rays.
Scientists from 15 institutes, led by the University of Oxford in the U.K., announced today (March 20, 2018) that they’ve solved the mystery of why comets emit X-rays. Very hot objects like the sun emit X-rays, but comets aren’t hot. In fact, they’re sometimes described as dirty snowballs and are among our solar system’s coldest objects. So what’s the mechanism for X-rays from comets?
The answer comes from experiments performed at the LULI laser facility in Paris, where, these scientists say, they were able to replicate the interaction of comets with the solar wind. The new study is published in the peer-reviewedjournal Nature Physics. These scientists’ statement explained:
When comets travel through the solar system they interact with solar radiation, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma as well as the observed cometary tail, and in some cases, X-rays. These are generated on the sunward side of the comet where the solar wind impacts the cometary atmosphere, forming a bow shock.
Alexandra Rigby, an Oxford University student, led the experiment as part of her doctoral research. She explained:
The laser beams are fired onto a plastic foil which explodes, causing a stream of electrons and ions to be expelled forming a high speed flow of ionized gas (plasma) like the solar wind.
To replicate a “comet” in the lab, the researchers placed a solid sphere of material about 1 centimeter (0.4 inches) away from the plastic foil. The result, they said, mimicked conditions comets encounter while traveling through our solar system. It was found that electrons are heated to about a million degrees Celsius (about 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit) in the upstream region by plasma turbulence. Their statement explained:
These hot electrons are responsible for emitting X-rays in the presence of a magnetic field.
Physicist Gianluca Gregori of Oxford – who led the scientific team – commented:
These experimental results provide direct laboratory evidence that objects moving through magnetized plasmas can be sites of electron heating. This process is common in astrophysics and can take place not only in comets, but also in planetary magnetospheres (as of our own Earth), or even in supernova remnants where the ejected material sends a shock wave into the interstellar gas.
The scientists expressed satisfaction that they can now replicate astrophysical phenomena like this one in the laboratory and, thereby, to solve long-standing mysteries, like the mystery of X-rays from comets.
Artist’s concept of a comet, the Earth and our sun, via University of Oxford.
Bottom line: X-rays come from very hot objects, and comets are cold. Yet comets emit X-rays. Researchers used lasers in a laboratory setting to find out why.
The Juno spacecraft has found that the giant planet Jupiter is full of big surprises; its interior composition and structure seem to be quite different, and its winds even more active, than originally thought. Now, giant cyclones at the planet’s poles have been seen in greater detail than ever before. They are not only stunning, but unique from atmospheric storms of any other planet in our solar system, even other gas and ice giants. Also, other new data from Juno builds on previous findings, including showing that the planet’s strong winds penetrate deep into the atmosphere and last longer than any similar ones on our planet.
The new findings are published (here and here) in the March 8, 2018, edition of the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
In a statement from NASA, Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, said:
These astonishing science results are yet another example of Jupiter’s curve balls, and a testimony to the value of exploring the unknown from a new perspective with next-generation instruments. Juno’s unique orbit and evolutionary high-precision radio science and infrared technologies enabled these paradigm-shifting discoveries.
Juno is only about one-third the way through its primary mission, and already we are seeing the beginnings of a new Jupiter.
Since astronomers first started using telescopes, it could be seen that Jupiter seemed to be an active world, with its well-known colorful atmospheric belts, and of course the Great Red Spot. Thanks to probes like Voyager, Galileo and now Juno, we can see these phenomena in much greater detail than ever before. The atmospheric belts are incredibly turbulent, with jet streams and storms far more powerful than any on Earth.
Jupiter’s atmospheric marvels are not limited to its equatorial regions, however; Juno has provided unprecedented views of the planet’s poles, where massive cyclones churn with unearthly ferocity. Infrared images created from data taken by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument look almost surreal, like cosmic artwork.
The clusters of cyclones around the poles look kind of like a space pizza – a dazzling, yet unearthly sight. Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, and lead author of oneof the new papers, said:
Prior to Juno we did not know what the weather was like near Jupiter’s poles. Now, we have been able to observe the polar weather up-close every two months.
Each one of the northern cyclones is almost as wide as the distance between Naples, Italy, and New York City – and the southern ones are even larger than that. They have very violent winds, reaching, in some cases, speeds as great as 220 mph (350 kph). Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, they are very close together and enduring.
There is nothing else like it that we know of in the solar system.
Jupiter’s south pole has cyclones, too. This computer-generated image of cyclones at Jupiter’s south pole was created using data from the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument on Juno.
Interestingly, the cyclones remain close to each other but never seem to merge together.
Not only are Jupiter’s storms unearthly, so are its auroras, which are much more powerful than any here, and “defy earthly laws of physics.”
Juno had also already shown that the planet’s equatorial belts extend much farther down into the atmosphere than thought, and new gravity measurements have also now shown a north-south asymmetry. Luciano Iess, Juno co-investigator from Sapienza University of Rome, said:
Juno’s measurement of Jupiter’s gravity field indicates a surprising north-south asymmetry, similar to the asymmetry observed in its zones and belts.
The stronger the asymmetry, the deeper the jet streams are. The Jovian weather layer, from the very top to a depth of 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers), is now estimated to contain about one percent of Jupiter’s mass (about 3 Earth masses). Earth’s atmosphere is less than one millionth the mass of the planet itself, by comparison.
Another, more distant view of Jupiter’s south pole.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt.
Juno has also sent back incredible views of Jupiter’s colorful belts in the equatorial regions.
Image via NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.
Color-enhanced image showing intricate details in Jupiter’s cloud patterns.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran.
Juno also found that Jupiter rotates almost as a solid body, beneath the active weather layer.
This is really an amazing result, and future measurements by Juno will help us understand how the transition works between the weather layer and the rigid body below.
Juno’s discovery has implications for other worlds in our solar system and beyond. Our results imply that the outer differentially-rotating region should be at least three times deeper in Saturn and shallower in massive giant planets and brown dwarf stars.
Juno has conducted 10 science passes over Jupiter so far; the next one will be on April 1.
Bottom line: Thanks to Juno, we now know that Jupiter’s interior composition and structure appear different, and its winds more active, than originally thought. Also, Juno has now seen giant cyclones at Jupiter’s poles in greater detail than ever before.
Without question one of the most credible UFO sightings of all times is the sighting of a dark elliptical craft on Dec. 16, 1953 by one of the world’s leading aircraft engineers, Clarence Leonard “Kelly” Johnson, who designed the U-2 spy plane for the CIA.
In addition, what makes this sighting so credible is that unbeknown to Johnson, a Lockheed test pilot on a flight along the Los Angeles coastline corroborated Kelly’s sighting.
The Event
Johnson spotted the craft from his Lindero Ranch near Agoura, Calif. at about 5 p.m. and at first thought it was a lenticular cloud, or the vapor trail from some sort of aircraft.
“When it did not move or disintegrate, I asked my wife to get me our 8-power binoculars, so I could not have to take my eyes off the object, which by now I had recognized as a so-called saucer,” Kelly wrote in this Dec. 18, 1953 letter to the United States Air Force. (See copy of letter below)
Johnson then ran outside his house so he could focus better on the strange object.
“The object even in the glasses, appeared black and distinct, but I could make out no detail,” Johnson wrote.
As Johnson watched for about five minutes mesmerized — this is a man who was at the cutting edge of top-secret aircraft technology — when the object suddenly climbed and sped away at a speed Johnson estimated as impossible for any earthly technology.
The next day when Johnson reported for work at Lockheed, he found that one of its test pilots had seen the same UFO at the same time while testing the Constellation airframe 4301, which was a prototype for the Navy Airborne Early Warning aircraft.
The test pilot, Rudy Thoren, also documented his experience with the Air Force, which investigated the case as part of its Project Blue Book, only to conclude that both men had mistaken a cloud for a UFO.
Here Are the Declassified Documents Confirming the sighting:
Watch Auroras Shimmer from Space in This Serene Satellite View
Watch Auroras Shimmer from Space in This Serene Satellite View
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
The shimmering dance of an aurora shines in a video released recently by the European Space Agency (ESA).
An instrument called e-POP, which recently joined ESA's Swarm group of satellites, captured black-and-white footage of an aurora while flying overhead. The 1-minute video from 2013, released on ESA's website last month, zooms across an aurora in progress as clouds flow behind the flickering atmospheric lights.
Auroras are produced when charged particles from the sun interact with gas molecules high in Earth's atmosphere. As the molecules are "excited," they emit a glow — typically in hues of green, blue or red. In the Northern Hemisphere, auroras are also called the northern lights. [Amazing Auroras: Photos of Earth's Northern Lights]
The phenomenon is a beautiful sight, but it also gives scientists information about space weather, or the changing space environment close to Earth. The sun emits a constant stream of charged particles. During more intense periods of activity, these particles can produce auroras and can even damage infrastructure such as power lines or satellites.
The Swarm mission was initially made up of three ESA satellites, which have been examining Earth's magnetic field since 2013. They "have been returning a wealth of information about how our magnetic field is generated and how it protects us from dangerous electrically charged atomic particles in the solar wind," ESA officials wrote in a statement.
Late last month, an instrument from Canada's CASSIOPE (Cascade, SmallSat and Ionospheric Polar Explorer) satellite began contributing its observations. CASSIOPE, which also launched in 2013, includes an instrument called e-POP (Enhanced Polar Outflow Probe). e-POP gathers information on space storms and plasma (superheated gas) outflows from Earth's ionosphere, according to the University of Calgary, a partner on CASSIOPE.
The new collaboration will allow Canada and ESA to gather more data on the interactions between the magnetosphere and ionosphere, regions of the atmosphere that are high above Earth's surface, according to ESA. (The collaboration will collect data on things such as auroras, and Earth's magnetic field and upper-atmosphere dynamics.)
"This is a textbook example of how virtual constellations and collaborative initiatives can be realised, even deep into the missions' exploitation phases," Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director of Earth observation programs, said in the statement. "We embrace the opportunity to include e-POP in the Swarm mission, especially because it is clear that the more data we get, the better the picture we have of complex space weather dynamics."
Rachel Carlsen was outside her son’s school in Ladera Ranch the morning of Tuesday, March 20 when she noticed something strange in the sky.
“It looked like a tear in the cloud,” Carlsen, 35, said. “I didn’t know what I was looking at, but I knew I’d never seen anything like it before.”
She snapped a photo with her iPhone and later Googled the phrase “hole in cloud.” It turned out that she’d captured a rare instance of a fallstreak hole, a phenomenon where a large circular gap appears in a high-altitude cloud.
Also known as a “hole-punch cloud,” this rare formation appears when water droplets in the cloud cool to temperatures below freezing — but don’t freeze over. If there’s a disturbance to the cloud — such as a plane — it triggers the rapid formation of ice crystals. The crystals fall out of the cloud in streaks, leaving behind an expanding gap.
“It’s not something you see in Orange County every day,” Carlsen said.
One of the most exciting recent space stories has been the discovery and study of ‘Oumuamua, a strange visitor from deep space named for the Hawaiian word for “scout” or “first visitor from afar.” The curious object was spotted in October 2017 by astronomer Rob Weryk of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, using the Pan-STARRS1 telescope and analysis of the asteroid (initially believed to be a comet) revealed that it originated from another solar system, making it the first known interstellar visitor to our own neck of the cosmic woods. The cylindrical shape, speed, and unusual trajectory of the object gave many astronomers and amateur skywatchers hope that we might have witnessed the first alien vessel or probe passing through our solar system. Further analysis, however, revealed it to be just another dumb space rock in a universe full of dumb space rocks.
Our first glimpse of ‘Oumuamua.
Still, ‘Oumuamua proved to be a source of wonder and new data on these far-ranging interstellar objects. A recent studyrevealed that its unusual tumble suggests some kind of “violent” episode in its past, perhaps a collision with another object or body, but the origin of the strange interstellar visitor has remained a mystery – until now. A new study published by astronomers at the University of Toronto claims to have identified a possible origin for ‘Oumuamua, one that also might reveal just how differently planetary formation works in other solar systems.
‘Oumuamua’s trajectory through our solar system.
According to the study, ‘Oumuamua likely came from a binary star system – a solar system with two suns. In single star systems like our own, most objects ejected into deep space are icy comets, since they form farther away from stars. In binary star systems, however, the heat of twin suns prevents these bodies from forming the icy shells which surround comets; thus, they are more likely to resemble the ‘dark’ rocky consistency of ‘Oumuamua and other asteroids:
Whereas in [our] Solar system the ejected material is overwhelmingly icy, we expect that around 36 percent of binaries may predominantly eject material that is rocky or substantially devolatilised, leading to similar expectations for the abundance of rocky/devolatilised bodies in the interstellar population.
While this study isn’t exactly an astronomical smoking gun which tells us exactly where this strange interstellar visitor came from, possibly narrowing the search to binary star systems could help narrow down the search to…well, uh, 80% of all known star systems. Oh. Get crackin’, astronomers.
‘UFO’ passeert passagiersvliegtuig en doet lokale bewoners versteld staan. Er wordt momenteel druk gespeculeerd over dit object
‘UFO’ passeert passagiersvliegtuig en doet lokale bewoners versteld staan. Er wordt momenteel druk gespeculeerd over dit object
Er zijn beelden opgedoken van een UFO die een passagiersvliegtuig passeert. De beelden zouden zijn gemaakt door een inwoner van New Hampshire.
Te zien is hoe een onbekend vliegend object het vliegtuig achtervolgt en vervolgens inhaalt.
De verbaasde man stuurde de beelden op naar het Mutual UFO Network in de hoop meer te weten te komen over deze waarneming.
Onder de indruk
“Legerpiloten trainen hier in de bergen en ik kijk daar altijd met veel plezier naar,” zei de getuige. “Dit gebeurt vaak. Er zijn geregeld vliegtuigen en helikopters te zijn.”
“Ik zag uiteraard het vliegtuig, maar het werd door iets gevolgd,” vervolgde hij.
De oorspronkelijke videobeelden zijn gemaakt in 2016 en deze week online gezet door YouTube-kanaal NowYouKnow.
Het filmpje is inmiddels bijna 50.000 keer bekeken en veel mensen zijn onder de indruk.
Piloten
“Dit is geweldig! Als dit filmpje echt is en geen CGI, is het één van de beste, zo niet het beste,” schreef iemand.
“Ik vraag me af of iemand aan boord van het vliegtuig de UFO heeft gezien,” zei een ander.
“Ik ben benieuwd wat de piloten hebben gezien,” schreef weer een ander.
Verschillende hoogtes
Sommigen beweerden dat de beelden nep zijn of dat het twee vliegtuigen zijn op verschillende hoogtes.
“Dat is geen passagiersvliegtuig,” zei iemand nog. “Dat is een overheidsvliegtuig dat chemicaliën in de lucht sproeit.”
Leaked WikiLeaks Cable Confirms Alien Life On Other Planets
Leaked WikiLeaks Cable Confirms Alien Life On Other Planets
A cable released by Wikileaks seems to have confirmed what millions of people around the globe believe for decades: we are not the only “intelligent” lifeforms in the universe.
WikiLeaks is an international non-profit media organization, which publishes anonymous reports and leaked documents with sensitive content of public interest on its website, preserving the anonymity of its sources.
The site was launched in December 2006, although its activity began in July 2007-2008.
Since then its database has grown steadily to accumulate 1.2 million documents.
Its creator is Julian Assange and is managed by The Sunshine Press.
The website itself is a treasure-trove of ‘secret’ or better said sensitive information, and unsurprisingly, among the 1.2 million leaked documents posted on Wikileaks, we find a couple for them that directly speak about extraterrestrial life.
A document titled: “MAYOR MEETS AMBASSADOR, CONFIRMS EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE” seems to confirm what many of us have known for decades, there is life on other planets in the universe.
The leaked document was posted in January of 2010 and was originally classified as ‘Confidential’ according to Wikileaks.
The document reads:
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d)
(C) Summary: In a platitude-ridden meeting, Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev said upcoming elections would be free and fair, that contributions to the Roghun Dam were voluntary, and that the losses suffered by the United States in Afghanistan were felt by Tajiks as their own. Ubaidulloev asked for help in getting Tajik students admitted to Harvard University but effectively declined to help find a new location for an American Corner in Dushanbe. He asserted the existence of life on other planets, caveating this by noting that we should focus on solving our problems on Earth. End Summary.
AFGHANISTAN
(SBU) On January 13 Ambassador called on Dushanbe Mayor and Chairman of the upper house of Parliament Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev at his parliamentary office. The Mayor began the meeting with a lengthy discourse on Afghanistan, thanking the United States for its contributions and sacrifices there, and saying that U.S. activities there were very important “as we enter the third millennium and the 21st century.” Ubaidulloev thought the main task there was to build a sense of national identity among ethnically disparate groups, and said the United States was an example for this. He noted that “war is very dangerous”, and said, “we know there is life on other planets, but we must make peace here first.”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Bevestigt een gelekte WikiLeaks-cable het bestaan van buitenaards leven? Kijk wat deze burgemeester erover zegt
Bevestigt een gelekte WikiLeaks-cable het bestaan van buitenaards leven? Kijk wat deze burgemeester erover zegt
Een WikiLeaks-cable lijkt te bevestigen wat miljoenen mensen op aarde al decennialang geloven: dat we niet de enige intelligente levensvormen in het universum zijn.
De onthullingssite bevat een schat aan informatie. Er zijn inmiddels ruim 1,2 miljoen gelekte stukken op geplaatst. Een aantal daarvan heeft betrekking op buitenaards leven.
Een document getiteld ‘Burgemeester ontmoet ambassadeur, bevestigt buitenaards leven’ lijkt te bevestigen dat er leven is op andere planeten.
Verwijzing
Op 15 januari 2010 werd vanaf de Amerikaanse ambassade in de Tadzjiekse hoofdstad Doesjanbe een bericht naar Washington gestuurd met een verwijzing naar buitenaards leven.
Twee dagen daarvoor had de ambassadeur burgemeester van Doesjanbe en parlementsvoorzitter Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev uitgenodigd voor een gesprek.
De burgemeester en de ambassadeur spraken uitgebreid over de situatie in Afghanistan.
Leven op andere planeten
Ubaidulloev bedankte de VS voor haar bijdrage en opofferingen aldaar en zei dat de Amerikaanse activiteiten erg belangrijk waren ‘terwijl we het derde millennium en de 21e eeuw zijn binnengegaan’.
Ubaidulloev dacht dat de inspanningen vooral waren gericht op het versterken van het nationale identiteitsgevoel onder etnische groepen en noemde de VS als voorbeeld.
Hij merkte op dat oorlog ‘zeer gevaarlijk’ is en dat hij weet dat ‘leven op andere planeten bestaat’, maar dat we eerst vrede op aarde moeten realiseren.
For your next intergalactic voyage: a weather station by MB&F and L’Epée 183
For your next intergalactic voyage: a weather station by MB&F and L’Epée 183
MB&F L'Epee The Fifth Element horological weather station - Baselworld 2018
For their latest collaboration, MB&F and L’Epée give us… an intergalactic weather station named The Fifth Element. It comprises a clock, a barometer, a hygrograph and a thermometer (as detachable pods) within a mothership, flown by an alien.
The Fifth Element is an intergalactic horological weather station enabling accurate weather forecasting even when the power goes down. Four (UFO) elements: clock, barometer, hygrometer, and thermometer combine in a mothership (with Ross, the alien pilot) to create an entity much larger than the sum of its parts: The Fifth Element. An analogue weather station might at first glance appear anachronistic; however, when the storm hits and the power goes down, the Fifth Element will still work perfectly. And, in the worst-case scenario, you can hitch a ride off planet Earth with Ross.
Max Busser (MB&F) et Arnaud Nicolas (L'Epée 1839)
MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser long admired desktop weather stations of the last century, but frustrated in not finding the right vintage model for himself decided to create his own. Four removable and interchangeable instrument Elements make up the Fifth Element:
Clock Element: Because weather forecasting is based on the speed of changes over time, the accurate time is required for meteorological observations. For the Fifth Element, L’Epée 1839 reengineered and skeletonised their 8-day clock movement to maximize transparency and visual access.
Barometer Element: The barometer, which measures air pressure, is the mainstay of weather forecasting. As a general rule, increasing air pressure foretells good clear weather, decreasing air pressure portends inclement weather. The faster the change, the more extreme the coming weather.
Hygrometer Element: The hygrometer measures the percentage of water vapour in the air; it displays this as a percentage of the maximum amount of moisture that might be held at a given temperature.
Thermometer Element: Thermometers don’t simply measure temperature, but the average kinetic energy of a substance. The higher the temperature, the higher the energy. A thermometer is essentially a power reserve indication of the energy in the atmosphere around us.
While the Fifth Element attends to the serious side of weather forecasting with joyful fantasy, this space-age weather station was only made possible thanks to L’Epée 1839, which mastered the precision manufacturing of the intricate series of curves and circles within circles that make up the large structure. Over 500 individual components form the mother ship and its interchangeable Elements; more than many Grand Complications!
And there’s one more function that MB&F surreptitiously integrates into all of its machines: the ability to make you smile. For the Fifth Element, that role goes to Ross: thanks to his own manually-wound, air-regulated movement, the alien pilot rotates around the UFO’s cockpit checking that the skies are clear of both clouds and hostile invaders. The Fifth Element is available in 3 limited editions of 18 pieces each in Black, Silver and Blue.
Eerie moment ‘UFO speeds after passenger jet and overtakes it’ sending conspiracy theorists into a frenzy
Eerie moment ‘UFO speeds after passenger jet and overtakes it’ sending conspiracy theorists into a frenzy
A WITNESS says he was blown away by the sighting of a bizarre object following and then overtaking a passenger jet high in the sky.
Alys Bowen
BIZARRE footage apparently showing a UFO speeding after and overtaking a passenger jet has sent conspiracy theorists into a frenzy.
The eerie clip shows a saucer-shaped object following the plane in its vapour trails before passing it completely.
The person who filed the clip said they were reading at home in Lincoln, New Hampshire, when they noticed the strange object close to the aircraft.
They said: “I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them fly through.
“This happens all the time, jets and helicopters are a common sighting.
“So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.”
The shocked witness added: “I immediately thought I was witnessing some strange aircraft, possibly military but it was not a jet.”
An alleged UFO in apparent proximity to a passenger jet has caused a You Tube sensation.
Source:Supplied
“The UFO was gaining on a jet. No helicopter could do that. I was blown away and luckily got out my phone in time to take a video.”
The footage was captured in 2016 but it was recently shared on YouTube and has racked up over 27,000 views.
One user wrote: “I am actually baffled. This looks legit, as to why — who knows.”
Another had a different explanation: “It’s two planes travelling at different altitudes, one creating a vapour trail.”
But the witness is convinced the sighting was supernatural.
They said: “I was very excited and anxious.
“I felt I had witnessed something very hard to dismiss as a “weather balloon” or some obvious type of aircraft.
“Shortly after the jet and object left my range of sight I saw three more jets and 1 helicopter going the same direction (in my opinion chasing the UFO).”
Thanks to the ceaseless march of technology, agencies like NASA and other scientific bodies from around the world have been able to teach us a lot about space. We now get regular news about new plants from other star systems, we know what makes many of our nearest planetary neighbors tick, and we’re learning more than ever about how Earth formed long before life existed here. But space still holds many secrets, and fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the most tantalizing mysteries of the cosmos.
FRBs are high-energy signals blasted into space that can be detected here on Earth with the help of technology, but their origins remain unclear. When scientists detect them, they are numbered and named based on when they were first heard, but other than that there’s not much we know about them. Now, a new batch of bursts has been detectedby astronomers in Australia, and one of them was the brightest ever recorded.
FRBs last only fractions of a second before disappearing. They are unpredictable and follow no obvious pattern. This most recent FRB sighting comes from Australia’s Parkes Observatory where three distinct radio bursts were detected in rapid succession. The first burst, detected on March 1st, was followed by subsequent radio bursts on March 9th and 11th.
It was the March 9th signal that is most interesting to astronomers, due to its size. It boasted a signal-to-noise ratio of 411, making it the strongest FRB ever recorded by a large margin. As New Atlas explains, the second brightest burst had a signal-to-noise ratio of around 90, with most FRBs falling between 10 and 40 on the same scale.
The mystery of where fast radio bursts come from has fascinated scientists for a long time, but a few theories are currently leading the pack. Some researchers believe that supernovas are responsible for the bright signal bursts, with the radio waves of a distant star’s supernova arriving long after the light of the event would have been visible to us. By the time we hear the signal, the actual supernova event has long since fizzled out, making it appear as though the bursts are originating from nothing at all. Or, maybe it’s aliens? Yeah, it’s probably aliens.
She also said she would look into sending a tast force Area 51 (pictured)
Area 51 may hold answers about aliens
There has been much speculation surrounding the 1947 crash of a flying object near Roswell, N.M.
WRITTEN BY JENNIFER WAGNER
Are there aliens? And if so, why don't we know about them?
No one knows the true answer to these questions, but many speculate the answers might have something to do with Area 51.
Area 51 is a highly known and widely debated Air Force Base located in Nevada, about 80 miles outside of Las Vegas. Its official purpose is to test military aircraft technology; however, it is rumored to contain the remains of alien spacecrafts that have crashed as well as communication with extraterrestrials, according to Time. This is due to all of the supposed UFO sightings surrounding the area. The government claims that the information from the base is classified for national security purposes, which only helps confirm in the minds of many that their suspicions are correct.
But how did all of these ideas start?
While there have been many possible UFO sightings, the most compelling and widely talked about is the Roswell incident of 1947. Sometime in early July of that year, an unknown object crashed in a ranch outside of Roswell, N.M., according to the Huffington Post. The owner of the ranch, W.W. Brazel, collected some of the debris, took it to the local sheriff, George Wilcox, who eventually notified the FBI.
From there, Maj. Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer for one of the local Air Force bases, was brought to inspect the crash site. On July 8, the Roswell Daily Record printed an article stating that the Roswell Army Air Field had captured a flying saucer. The next day, a second article was run stating that a mistake was made and the crash material was from a weather balloon, according to the Huffington Post.
Since 1947, there have been many investigations and reports published by both the military and civilians to find out what really happened in Roswell. After the initial article was published, both Marcel and Brazel rescinded their claims that the crash site contained a flying saucer and possible alien bodies, but in recent years they have both again claimed that they believed that these original statements were true.
As strange as this all may sound, there is also another conspiracy theory that suggests Area 51 is being used to study time travel and teleportation technology, although this theory is not nearly as popular as the theory on extraterrestrial communication and cover-ups.
These theories, to me, may hold some water due to the uncertainty revolving around the existence of extraterrestrials, although I am not entirely convinced. However, we will never really know the answer to these questions, so unfortunately what Area 51 contains and what really happened in the Roswell incident will probably remain a mystery.
Harvard astrochemist Karin Öberg told Aleteia, "Wouldn’t it be really cool to talk to another species that had a relationship with God ... ?”
Karin Öberg hopes there is intelligent life on other planets.
That’s not only because her job as an astronomer is to look for solar systems that could be home to life. It’s also because of her Catholic faith. “I would hope yes,” Öberg said in a recent interview with Aleteia. “It would be so exciting to meet rational animals that are not humans and the same holds for non-rational life also. Again, we don’t know but I wouldn’t be doing what I do for a living if I didn’t think they existed.”
Öberg is an astrochemist at Harvard University whose research focuses on protoplanetary disks around other stars and how their chemical composition makes the planets that form out of them hospitable to life. Öberg spoke with Aleteia after a lecture on the science and theology of other worlds on March 5 at Brown University, hosted by the Thomistic Institute.
Just what are the chances that there is another earth out there with rational animals like us? Öberg won’t say how probable it is because probability involves a scientific calculation that can’t yet be made. But her gut instinct says yes. Her hope is driven by both professional as well as spiritual considerations.
“Wouldn’t it be really cool to talk to another species that had a relationship with God but must look different because it’s not influenced by our story?” Öberg told Aleteia. “I realize we’re very limited in what we can do but getting a second data point I think would be helpful.”
As a scientist, Öberg may not be ready to talk about the probability that there is intelligent life, but she can talk about whether there are planets that would be conducive to it. Here there is more data. Planets around other stars, technically known as exoplanets, were hypothesized in 1584 by the Italian monk and philosopher Giordano Bruno, but the first one was not discovered until 1995. Since then, the existence of thousands has been verified. In 2016 alone, scientists found 1,284 new exoplanets.
At least three big criteria must be met in order for an exoplanet to be hospitable to life, according to Öberg. First it must be small and rocky, like earth. Second, it must be the right distance from the star it is orbiting. Being too close or too far would make the planet correspondingly too hot or too cold. Finally, because it is a good solvent for the necessary organic chemicals, water is essential for life.
Based on those criteria, is it certainly possible there are life-friendly worlds out there. Out of 4,034 total exoplanets, as of last summer, 50 were earth-like and in the “habitable zone” of their stars, according to the New Scientist. As for water, while it is unique, it is “one of the most common things in space,” according to Öberg.
And that’s about as far as science goes, leaving so far unanswered the big question about other intelligent life. “We do not yet know whether any of these extraterrestrial planets are inhabited or not, even by the simplest life-forms. Are we inhabiting a universe teaming with life, that seems to have the transition from non-living to living matter built into its laws? Or are we a lonely ark, traveling through space and time carrying all living things with us?” Öberg asked in her lecture.
The question is intriguing from both a scientific and a theological perspective.
In terms of theology, Öberg, who is a convert to Catholicism, said Christianity already has a belief in other intelligent life. “We already know extraterrestrials. They’re called angels,” Öberg said. But angels are intellectual beings, not rational animals. Angels are not in need of salvation, whereas we human beings as rational animals are, Öberg noted. (She didn’t mention the issue of fallen angels, but St. Thomas Aquinas taught that demons aren’t saved because their free choices once made, unlike ours, are permanent. Thus, they persist in their rejection of God.)
That leads to a big theological question: “If there are rational aliens out there, how are they saved? Are they saved?” Öberg asked.
For Christians, salvation comes through the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity. “It seems clear from reading the New Testament that this was a one-time event for all,” Öberg said. Likewise, Aquinas arguedthat it was fitting for the Word to take on human nature alone. But the reasons for this—the dignity of having a rational nature and needing salvation—in theory would apply to other rational beings, Öberg noted. (But Öberg remains skeptical that there would be another incarnation.)
Although she is hoping there are rational animals, Öberg says she would be happy with the discovery of far humbler life-forms elsewhere in the universe. “I would be excited by the tiniest bacteria,” Öberg told Aleteia. “I don’t need much more than that.”
Either way, future discoveries are bound to reveal more about the kind of universe in which we live, and indirectly, further reveal its Creator.
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These Drawings Show How Pop Culture Has Changed the Way We See UFOs
These Drawings Show How Pop Culture Has Changed the Way We See UFOs
By Molly Gottschalk
The National Archives DEFE24/1999. Drawing of a UFO producing a crop circle, November 1998.
From 1962 to 2009, a secret division of the British Ministry of Defense—dubbed the “UFO desk”—fielded reports of some 11,000 sightings of unidentified flying objects. These came in the form of tirelessly detailed letters, drawings, photographs, and paintings submitted by an ever-watchful public. But for decades, no one ever saw the files.
Thanks to a decade-long undertaking by the U.K.’s National Archives, more than 60,000 pages of the reports have been released to the public. A new book by Dr. David Clarke, who spearheaded the project as a consultant from 2008 and has spent more than 20 years immersed in ufology, zeroes in on perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the files: the artwork.
From encounters scrawled in crayon by a group of bewildered schoolchildren to a detailed diagram of a UFO producing a crop circle, the now-declassified artworks in UFO Drawings from the National Archiveschronicle flying saucers and rockets of all shapes and sizes, reflecting a cultural fascination—and evolving visual language—around UFOs.
The National Archives AIR 2/18961. Painting of a UFO spotted on 18 January 1975, near Birmingham. Later identified as satellites Zond 4 and Cosmos 460.
Fittingly, Clarke’s journey to unearth these documents traces back to the era of 1990s sci-fi. Around the 50th anniversary of the Roswell Incident, and as films like Men in Black, Mars Attacks, and Independence Day packed theaters across the globe, Clarke was working as a journalist and engaging with a revival of public interest in aliens and UFOs.
Not long before, the U.K. government had begun releasing previously classified documents from the UFO desk in small increments. Clarke took notice. And when the country’s Freedom of Information Act passed in 2000, granting the public “right of access” to government records, he began making targeted requests for the release of these materials. Ultimately, he began working with the National Archives in an official capacity, acting as a curator of the declassified UFO material.
After publishing an initial book on the files, Clarke narrowed his focus to the artwork embedded in the records, which encapsulate what he describes as a “social phenomenon.”
“If you look at the illustrations, you tend to notice that the way that people describe the things that they see in the sky seems to change in response to… what’s going on in pop culture,” Clarke tells me. In the 1930s through the ’50s, he says, drawings often mimicked the classic disc-shaped flying saucer—like the one that descends on Washington, D.C., in the 1951 sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, or the rocket-shaped objects of the 1930s serial TV show Flash Gordon.
“But the nearer you get to the present day, you find that people are reporting things in the sky in completely different terms,” he says. More recently, civilian drawings depict giant wedge-shaped or triangular-shaped objects, recalling not only The X-Files spacecraft but, Clarke says, the development of Stealth technology, like the U.S. air force classic F-117 stealth fighter and the B2 bomber.
There’s two schools of thought here, Clarke says: Either aliens are watching our films and TV shows and are altering their spaceships accordingly; or people are seeing unidentified things in the sky, but the way they recall and report them is being altered by what they expect to see based on popular culture and current technology.
In 1977—a year, Clarke notes in the book, in which a slew of UFO sightings aligned neatly with the release of Star Wars—a group of 10 young children spotted an oval-shaped object floating between a pair of trees on their school playground in Macclesfield, England. Encouraged by their teacher to draw what they saw, the students delivered eerily similar pencil-and-crayon renderings of the scene, which were passed along to the Cheshire Police. The drawings made their way to Air Traffic Control authorities and ultimately were sent to the secret UFO investigation bureau at the Ministry of Defense.
Clarke was about 10 years old at the time, he says, his head filled with images of whirring flying saucers and spaceships borrowed from sources like Dr. Who. Thirty years later, while researching this project, Clarke came across the original drawings from Cheshire.
The National Archives DEFE24/1967.
It could well have been a weather balloon gone astray, or a helicopter, he says, but it’s impossible to know at this point. “If you’ve got it in your head that aliens exist and that UFOs are visiting us, it’s quite logical then—if you’re of that age, and you’re quite suggestible, you’re going to see something and think it’s a flying saucer.”
But adults, he says, are just as suggestible as children. In 1976, a 27-year-old woman who was the daughter of a Royal Air Force captain was driving near London with her boyfriend when they both spotted a strange object, lit up with white lights, that passed overhead and appeared to be coming in to land. She filed a detailed drawing that showed the UFO from three vantages—straight on, from below, and as seen through the car windshield. Her report made its way to a secretive branch of the Ministry of Defense called D155, where, by consulting radar footage from the area, it was decided that the object was a Boeing 720 plane that had diverted from Gatwick airport at the same time. But she had been clear that the object had no wings, and stressed “it was nothing recognisable to me.”
Another image, known today as The Solway Spaceman, is a mysterious photograph that Carlisle fireman Jim Templeton took of his five-year-old daughter Elizabeth in the English countryside in May 1964. As the story goes, when Templeton came to pick up his developed film, the shop assistant said, “That’s a marvelous photograph, but it’s rather spoilt by the big man behind her!” Indeed, an unexplained figure dressed in a white astronaut suit loomed behind his daughter’s head. Neither the local Cumbrian police (nor the Kodak film company) could explain it. After the image was published in outlets around the world, Templeton reported being visited by two men in black suits and bowler hats. They drove a black Jaguar and said they were from “the Ministry” they asked to be taken to the site of the photograph.
he National Archives DEFE 24/1206.
The National Archives DEFE 24/1983.
One less dramatic example holds particular significance for Clarke. “In many of these cases in the history of ufology,” he says, “there are lots of people who have made things up or that have played pranks and told lies about things that they’ve seen.” Others, he says, are just imaginative, claiming they’ve been abducted by aliens or adventured on trips across the universe. So a story of an ordinary policeman who spotted something unusual while on the job, and promptly filed a report, stands out.
In January 1966, a police officer in a town called Wilmslow was checking on houses late in the evening when he saw something unexpected in the sky. Twenty minutes later, back at the station, he quickly sketched the object in pencil—a 30-foot-long mass, roughly the size of a bus, emitting a greenish-gray glow. He even drew a map. The officer then shared his drawing with the police chief and it was forwarded on to an intelligence officer.
As the report reads, “There is no reason to doubt the fact that this constable saw something completely foreign to his previous experience.”
Clarke explains, “This story is typical of an ordinary person just doing their job, not expecting something unusual to happen—and they almost walk over this invisible curtain into the twilight zone, and see something absolutely extraordinary that they just cannot explain. This is the heart of the UFO enigma that we still can’t fully explain.”
Little did they realize these drawings, photographs, and illustrations would find a place in the National Archives, and in the history of 20th-century visual culture.
How humans might react has been the topic of a great deal of speculation in fiction, policy circles and academia, said Michael Varnum, assistant professor of psychology at ASU.
He has been interested in answering the question for years, Varnum said. Before the study, he said, there was not enough information that could lead to reasonable predictions of humans' reactions.
"But until now, it was all speculation essentially. This set of studies for the first time tackles the question empirically and the resounding conclusion is that we will take the news rather well."
Varnum is a lifelong science-fiction fan and a member of the university's Interplanetary Initiative, a pan-university effort aiming to "pave the way for the future of humans in space," according to the center's website.
Back when UFO was a new term
This isn't the first time scientists worked to answer the question.
In 1953, the United States Air Force coined the term "UFO," or unidentified flying object. That same year, a panel of scientists was formed to study evidence of UFOs and the potential danger they posted to U.S. national security.
The Robertson Panel, as it was known, "did find that continued emphasis on UFO reporting might threaten 'the orderly functioning' of the government by clogging the channels of communication with irrelevant reports and by inducing 'hysterical mass behavior' harmful to constituted authority," according to the Central Intelligence Agencyin a report.
Air Guard unit dropped flares on night Valley saw the lights The Arizona Republic
Skeptics seek solutions to UFOs The Arizona Republic
Phoenix Lights still bright 1 year later The Arizona Republic
Phoenix Lights, plus a year The Arizona Republic
'Phoenix Lights' witnesses credible, hard to dismiss The Arizona Republic
Seeking UFO Answers The Arizona Republic
Small organisms, big impact?
Scientists believe humanity is much more likely to come into contact with microbial extraterrestrial life before intelligent life.
Overall, the new ASU study focused on just that — humanity's reaction to the discovery of microbial life from other worlds.
The team performed a pilot study as well as two additional studies. In the additional studies, 500 different participants provided their reactions.
"If this kind of discovery were to take place, it would be one of the most important scientific events in our history. It also might represent a major paradigm shift in terms of how we see our place in the cosmos," Varnum said.
Overall in the studies, people had mostly positive reactions of possible extraterrestrial life.
Participants looked at past media coverage on events suggesting extraterrestrial life and responded to claims of the discovery of microbial fossils. Articles focused on the possible fossilized Martian microbes, Tabby's Star, the "Dyson sphere," and Earth-like exoplanets.
"In our second experiment with a general sample, we felt that rather than come up with bogus stories it would be better to present people with actual media coverage of discoveries as a way to increase the realism of the study," said Varnum.
Also, Varnum's team used media coverage on Oumuamua to determine if participants believed the first-known interstellar asteroid was actually a spaceship. The asteroid was discovered in 2017.
Varnum believes the studies are important to scientific research and could lead to change.
"My work shows that at least in the short term, reactions to this kind of news will be positive, so that rather than worry about the potential for societal chaos, disruption, or negative mental health impacts, instead we can expect that people will be happy to learn we are not alone," Varnum said.
In the good old days, the arrival of UFOs on the front page of America’s paper of record might have seemed like a loose-thread tear right through the fabric of reality — the closest that secular, space-race America could have gotten to a Second Coming. Two decades ago, or three, or six, we would’ve also felt we knew the script in advance, thanks to the endless variations pop culture had played for us already: civilizational conflicts to mirror the real-world ones Americans had been imagining in terror since the beginning of the Cold War.
But when, in December, the New York Timespublished an undisputed account of what might once have sounded like crackpot conspiracy theory — that the Pentagon had spent five years investigating“unexplained aerial phenomena” — the response among the paper’s mostly liberal readers, exhausted and beaten down by “recent events,” was markedly different from the one in those movies. The news that aliens might actually be visiting us, regularly and recently, didn’t provoke terror about a coming space-opera conflict but something much more like the Evangelical dream of the Rapture the same liberals might have mocked as kooky right-wing escapism in the George W. Bush years. “The truth is out there,” former senator Harry Reid tweeted, with a link to the story. Thank God, came the response through the Twitter vent. “Could extraterrestrials help us save the Earth?” went one typical reaction.
Suddenly, aliens were an escapist fantasy — but also more credible (legitimized by the government!) than mere fantasy. That Pentagon report, which featured two gripping videos of aerial encounters, was just one beat in a recent search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence (or SETI) drumroll: In October, an object passed through our solar system that looked an awful lot like a spaceship; astronomers spent much of 2016 arguing over whether the weird pulses of light coming from a distant star were actually evidence of an “alien megastructure.” An army of Silicon Valley billionaires are racing to make first contact, and our new superpowered telescopes are discovering more conceivably habitable planets every year.
Then, in March, a third video emerged, featuring a Navy encounter off the East Coast in 2015, with the group that released it hinting at an additional trove. “Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?” wondered a Washington Postop-ed — surely the first time the newspaper of Katharine Graham was raising a stink about aliens. The next week, President Trump seemed to announce he was creating an entirely new branch of the military: “We’ll call it the Space Force.” You could be forgiven for thinking you’d woken up in a science-fiction novel. At the very least, it is starting to seem non-crazy to believe. A recent study shows half the world already does.
Searching the Universe for Extraterrestrial Life: A Timeline
Alien dreams have always been powered by the desire for human importance in a vast, forgetful cosmos: We want to be seen so we know we exist. What’s unusual about the alien fantasy is that, unlike religion, nationalism, or conspiracy theory, it doesn’t place humans at the center of a grand story. In fact, it displaces them: Humans become, briefly, major players in a drama of almost inconceivable scale, the lasting lesson of which is, unfortunately: We’re total nobodies. That’s the lesson, at least, of a visit from aliens, who got here long before we were able to get there, wherever there is; if humans are the ones making first contact, we’re the advanced ones and the aliens are probably more like productive pond scum, which may be one reason we fantasize about those kinds of encounters a lot less than visits to Earth. Of course, when the aliens are the explorers, we’re the pond scum.
But a lot of people in the modern world will take that bargain, which should probably not surprise us given how dizzying, secular, and, um, alienating that world objectively is. Most conspiracy theory is fueled by a desire to see the universe as ultimately intelligible — the bargain being that things can make sense, but only if you believe in pervasive totalitarian malice. Alien conspiracy theory keeps the malice (cover-ups at Roswell, the Men in Black). But rather than benzo comforts like order and intelligibility, it offers the psychedelic drama of total unintelligibility — awe, wonder, a knee-wobblingly deep, mystical experience of existential ignorance.
Floating Down (1990), by David Huggins, who makes oil paintings about his encounters with aliens. As featured in Love & Saucers, a 2017 documentary about the artist. Photo: David Huggins
Every extraterrestrial era has its own fantasy of consequentiality. Crop circles began as a phenomenon of the English countryside, then spread to the far corners of the onetime British Empire (Australia, Canada) after World War II, when the U.K. was falling unmistakably back in the ranks of nations and when its provincial subjects would have felt some understandable desire to demonstrate that, somehow, their lives really mattered. American encounters were invariably rural as well — typically farmers and ranchers, mostly in the country’s interior and the deserts and mountains of the West, in decades the country as a whole spent rapidly urbanizing and then industrializing its farmland so systematically it looked like Monsanto was trying to exterminate the American farmer along with the cotton bollworm.
These incidents, which never occurred in cities, where other witnesses could have verified them, were often reported as horror stories even as they may have expressed secret desires. But the pop culture of the same era introduced another mode: the suburban encounter, often still private and personal but more ooey-gooey New Age than abductions and anal probes. The two major authors were Steven Spielberg, who gave us broken-family theology in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., and Carl Sagan, who gave us Cosmos and Contact, which, when it was turned into a movie, featured an eerie seascape that was basically a secular heaven, maintained by offscreen aliens explicitly playing the role of gods. Stephen Hawking, who died in March, was also a godfather of a sort, not just a physicist but a sage and guru for a generation of squishy-lefty seekers curious about life beyond Earth; among his last acts was partnering with Yuri Milner, a Russian billionaire building a giant SETI laboratory at UC Berkeley. Americans used to regard the space race with not just national but something like collectivist pride — all those government engineers from the new middle class. Suddenly, it’s the rich kids with the cool toys and the keys to the rocket ship.
Which does mark a change. Beyond the mysticism, American stories of alien encounters have been (often anxious) meditations on the status of American power — meditations informed, surely, by both the memory of European settlers, for whom “first contact” was a story of triumphant genocide, and sympathy for those they trampled. Given the option, America will always prefer to play the cowboy, and through the post–Cold War 1990s, the dominant alien-encounter template was still the swaggering military strut of Independence Day. (The closest thing we got to a counterpoint was the cover-up paranoia of The X-Files, which just expressed a darker faith in the same American power.) By the time we got an alien epic for the War on Terror era, even Spielberg staged it as a story about armed conflict: The War of the Worlds. Of course, in that story, the winner was always going to be the humans — that is, the Americans. And then came the financial crisis, the recession, and Trump, and the new hope that E.T. may take pity on us.
Elsewhere in the world, where things are looking up, relatively speaking, you might expect a different perspective on aliens — and indeed, as The Atlantic’s Ross Andersen documented last fall, the Chinese have recently opened the world’s largest radar facility to listen for signs of aliens, wherever they are out there. But even our future Chinese overlords, projecting power for the first time into the ever-receding reaches of the universe, are a bit nervous about aliens; as Andersen points out, their popular science fiction bears the evidence. And why wouldn’t they be? They have their own memory of colonial contact — the Opium Wars, the end of that empire — to reckon with. And, besides, the unknown is just scary. Things have to get pretty bleak before you take a chance on the arrival of a total blank slate, just for the sake of change. —David Wallace-Wells
1. The Government Literally Just Admitted It’s Taking UFOs Seriously
And, according to researchers, it’s only pretended to end the program.
A 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an “unknown object.”
In 1952, a CIA group called the Psychological Strategy Board concluded that, when it came to UFOs, the American public was dangerously gullible and prone to “hysterical mass behavior.” The group recommended “debunking” campaigns to tamper the public’s interest in unexplained phenomena. But the government seems to have been interested, too: In December, the Pentagon confirmed the existence of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Created in 2007 by senators Ted Stevens (who reported being chased by a mysterious object), Daniel Inouye, and then–Majority Leader Harry Reid, and funded with $22 million of “black money” from the Department of Defense’s budget, the program investigated and evaluated reports of UFO sightings, many of which came from American service members.
So much of what the program uncovered remains classified, but what little we know is tantalizing. Based on data it collected, the program identified five observations that showed mysterious objects displaying some level of “advanced physics,” also known as “stuff humans can’t do yet”: The objects would accelerate with g-forces too strong for the human body to withstand, or reach hypersonic speed with no heat trail or sonic boom, or they seemed to resist the effects of Earth’s gravity without any aerodynamic structures to provide thrust or lift. “No one has been able to figure out what these are,” said Luis Elizondo, who ran the program until last October, in a recent interview.
Elizondo has also talked about “metamaterials” that may have been recovered from unidentified aerial phenomena and stored in buildings owned by a private aerospace contractor in Las Vegas; they apparently have material compositions that aren’t found naturally on Earth and would be exceptionally expensive to replicate. According to a 2009 Pentagon briefing summarized in the New York Times, “the United States was incapable of defending itself against some of the technologies discovered.” This was a briefing by people trying to get more funding — but still.
Some of the accounts Elizondo and his team analyzed supposedly occurred near nuclear facilities like power plants or battleships. In November 2004, the USS Princeton, a Navy cruiser escorting the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the coast of San Diego, ordered two fighter jets to investigate mysterious aircraft the Navy had been tracking for weeks (meaning this was not just a trick of the eye or a momentary failure of perspective, the two things most often blamed for unexplained aerial phenomena). When the jets arrived at the location, one of the pilots, Commander David Fravor, saw a disturbance just below the ocean’s surface causing the water to roil around it. Then, suddenly, he saw a white, 40-foot Tic Tac–shaped craft moving like a Ping-Pong ball above the water. The vehicle began mirroring his plane’s movements, but when Fravor dove directly at the object, the Tic Tac zipped away.
The Pentagon has said funding for the program ran out in 2012 and wasn’t renewed. But Elizondo has claimed the project was alive and well when he resigned in October. —James D. Walsh
2. Harry Reid Says We’re Not Taking Them Seriously Enough
The former Senate majority leader is definitely a truther.
Eric Benson: I’m curious about just where your interest in this subject comes from.
Harry Reid: Bob Bigelow [the founder of Bigelow Aerospace and Budget Suites]. He’s a central figure in all this. When he was a young man, he heard a story from his grandparents about driving down from Mt. Charleston, near Las Vegas, where they saw a so-called flying saucer, for lack of a better description. Bob became a very wealthy man. He would pay for these conferences about UFOs, and he would bring in scientists, academics, and a few nutcases.
There were people trying to figure out what all this aerial phenomena was. Bob started sending me tons of stuff. Mainly what interested me is that so many people had seen these strange things in the air.
EB: So tell me how this program got started.
HR: I was in Washington in the Senate, and Bob called me and said, “I got the strangest letter here. Could I have a courier bring it to you?” I said sure. He didn’t want to send it to me over the lines, for obvious reasons.
The letter said, “I am a senior, longtime member of this security agency, and I have an interest in what you’ve been working on. I also want to go to your ranch in Utah.”
Bigelow had bought a great big ranch. All this crazy stuff goes on up there — you know, things in the air. Indians used to talk about it, part of their folklore.
So I called Bigelow back and said, “Hey, I’ll meet with the guy.” The program grew out of that, to study aerial phenomena.
We decided it would be [funded by] black money. I wanted to get something done. I didn’t want a debate where no one knew what the hell they were talking about on the Senate floor.
EB: I saw that you tweeted, “We don’t know the answers, but we have plenty of evidence to support asking the questions.” To you, what’s the most compelling evidence to support asking the questions?
HR: Read the reports. We have hundreds of — Eric, two, three weeks ago, maybe a month now, up in Montana, they had another strange deal at a missile base up there. It goes on all the time.
EB: Do you know things about this program that you can’t discuss publicly?
HR: Yeah.
3. Scientists Are Suddenly Much More Bullish About the Possibility of Life Out There
The universe is really big, people.
Just 20 years ago, we had not discovered a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know of more than 3,000 of them, and we know nearly every star in the night sky has at least one planet in its orbit. “Even people who are not terribly interested in science know that we’ve found that planets are as common as fire hydrants — they’re everywhere,” says Seth Shostak, the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute. “One in five or one in six might be a planet similar to the Earth.”
That doesn’t mean we’ll ever find an exact replica of Earth, but maybe we don’t have to. Our study of other planets and moons in the solar system shows us many worlds possess the ingredients necessary for life — an atmosphere, organic compounds, liquid water, and other necessities. (The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, for example, feature whole subsurface oceans.)
And even though these places are extremely harsh environments, that doesn’t mean as much as we might once have thought it did; recent discoveries on Earth itself demonstrate that life is much tougher than we thought. We’ve found organisms in blisteringly hot geysers in Yellowstone National Park, in the darkest crevices under the most ungodly pressures in the deep ocean, in dry hellscapes like the Atacama Desert in Chile (an analogue for Mars). These “extremophiles” don’t need a warm and fuzzy paradise to call home — in fact, they have already evolved to live in environments as harsh as those on other planets. Some, like tardigrades, can even survive the bleak vacuum of space itself. If there’s life in most of those places, “it’s going to be pond scum,” says Shostak. “But it’s alien pond scum. It shows that biology is all over.”
And where there’s biology, there may well be intelligence, and our increasing understanding of evolution also tells us life can evolve faster than we ever anticipated. Millions of years is a long time for us, but it’s the blink of an eye on the cosmic scale. Blink too fast, and you’ll miss that pond scum turning into an intelligent civilization sending out messages every which way, looking for friends.
And we’re now at the point where we could one day find those messages and send a reply. New technology gives us a better chance to actually make contact with extraterrestrials. Our radio telescopes can scan more of the night sky for an intelligent message than ever before. Our optical telescopes and observatories can peer farther into space and look for new planets, moons, and perhaps even signs of something altogether artificial (see “Tabby’s Star”). Our ability to parse volumes of data in mere seconds means we could conceivably survey much of the galaxy in just a few decades. That’s why, in the past few years, Shostak has continually bet a cup of coffee with everyone he knows that humans will find aliens by around 2029. “We’d have to be dead above the neck if we weren’t interested in this,” says Penelope Boston, the director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. —Neel Patel
4. They’re Especially Bullish About These Planets
Adventures in the “Goldilocks zone.”
Scientists now think every one in five or six planets might be habitable, based on two general criteria: They’re rocky, and they reside in a region of the star’s orbit called the “Goldilocks zone,” where it’s not too cold and not too hot, but just right to allow for liquid water to form on the surface. And where there’s water, there can be life. Extraterrestrial researchers and enthusiasts are most excited about these seven:
Proxima B:The closest exoplanet ever discovered is also a potentially habitable world in its own right, if the intense stellar winds don’t make it barren. It’s not totally inconceivable we might be able to actually send a probe and study it directly this century — even travel to it ourselves one day.
TRAPPIST-1 System:The red dwarf at the center of this possesses a whopping seven planets in its orbit — three of which reside in the Goldilocks zone, but all of which seem to possess some degree of potential habitability — and they’re so close to one another that life on one planet could quickly spread to another.
LHS 1140b: This wouldn’t be a planet we could colonize. It’s almost seven times the mass of the Earth and 40 percent larger, making it a “super-Earth.” But its mass means that it would retain a thicker atmosphere capable of keeping it warmer and more comfortable for life than most other places.
Ross 128 b: One of the best chances we have so far at finding life on another planet. It orbits an inactive red-dwarf star, meaning it’s likely not being bludgeoned by solar radiation. And we’ve detected strange signals emanating from the nearby host star — signals that perhaps have intelligent origins?
Mars:Mars has water, as we’ve known since 2015. Although the planet looks like a barren wasteland these days, there’s little reason to write off any chance we might find aliens residing in some cavern or crevice.
The Ocean Worlds (Europa, Enceladus, Titan):Many of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons show signs of possessing a liquid ocean underneath the surface.
GJ 1214b: Nicknamed “waterworld” by scientists; signs of potential clouds give us some hope the planet has an atmosphere.
—N.P.
5. And There Is “Documentation”
In 2012, the photographer Steven Hirsch asked UFO-convention attendees who claimed to have had personal contact with extraterrestrials to draw and describe their experiences. A sampling below.
Camille: A beam of solid blue light came through her ceiling and transported her onto a table where she was surrounded by beings in white robes with high collars. Photo: Courtesy of Steven Hirsch
Bruce: An alien woke him from his bed to show him the moons of Saturn. Photo: Courtesy of Steven Hirsch
Lisa: A gray alien knocked at her door and handed her two babies, leaving her with a hole in her head. Photo: Courtesy of Steven Hirsch
Steve: He saw a beeping, bright white light; it zapped his friend up. Photo: Courtesy of Steven Hirsch
Nancy: Her body responded to the “low hum” of the UFO spacecraft, a memory she accessed in regression therapy. Photo: Courtesy of Steven Hirsch
Rita: She has been visited by a golden reptilian alien throughout her life. Photo: Courtesy of Steven Hirsch
6. That “Asteroid” Looks an Awful Lot Like a Rocket Ship
For science-minded SETI freaks, the last decade has been a particularly exciting one.
‘Oumuamua.
We May Have Just Seen an Actual Flying Saucer When ‘Oumuamua — the name means “first messenger” in Hawaiian — was discovered floating through the solar system in October, SETI nuts immediately started checking the boxes that suggested the rod-shaped object might be an alien spacecraft of some kind. After all, it’s the first interstellar object we’ve ever seen pass through the solar system. UFO enthusiasts point out that rods (along with flying saucers) are the two most common shapes cited by witnesses in UFO sightings, and the cigar shape would allow it to be slim enough to avoid collision with other objects as well as maximize aerodynamics for travel. Both the SETI Institute and the Breakthrough Listen initiative pointed their instruments toward the object but found no unusual signals emitting from it. Of course, maybe it’s an ancient relic from an interstellar civilization, or maybe the aliens just weren’t interested in making contact (that asteroid-ness could’ve just been camouflage). With the object on its way out of the solar system, we may never know.
And There Could Be an Alien Megastructure Much Farther Out In the fall of 2015, Penn State astronomer Jason Wright posited that erratic shifts in brightness coming from a newly discovered star 1,280 light-years from Earth couldn’t be explained by exoplanets or other astrophysics that we understand. He theorized, instead, that the fluctuations may be the result of massive objects passing in front of the star, in a kind of orbit — a whole array of massive satellites or other kinds of structures, presumably produced by a civilization of advanced intelligence. Whoa.
Aliens Could Be Dancing to Earth Music Right Now Last year, two planets were discovered orbiting a red dwarf 12.36 light-years from Earth. At least one of these planets is in the Goldilocks zone, so SETI International decided to beam some musical signals over to the planet. With a closer proximity to Earth than most potentially habitable exoplanets, it’d be an exciting planet to start an interstellar pen-pal relationship with — assuming there’s someone around to hear our notes and listen to them as a welcoming tune instead of a battle cry.
And We’re Getting Radio Signals From … Something Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the most mysterious phenomena ever observed by scientists. Though they last only a few milliseconds, these pulses, first detected in 2007, emit more energy in that time than the sun does in 24 hours. Three more were found this month, and we’re no closer to understanding their origin — except that they’re coming from outside the Milky Way. So naturally, many experts have begun to think perhaps they’re produced by an ultra-advanced civilization from afar, trying to speak to us through signals we can barely comprehend.
7. These Masters of the Universe Are Obsessed (They Are Also All Men)
Which space-besotted billionaire will be the first to make contact?
Robert Bigelow As a child, Bigelow watched the government test atomic bombs from his bedroom window and he and his classmates could see the mushroom clouds bloom over the Mojave Desert from their school playground. To some, such memories are the stuff of dystopic Cold War hellscapes, but Bigelow remembers them as an epiphany. Even back then, Bigelow knew he wasn’t going to be a scientist (he was lousy at math), so he resolved himself to make as much money as possible in the hopes that he could one day fund his own space program. He went on to make at least $1 billion with Budget Suites of America, long-term motel rentals around the Southwest. He now runs Bigelow Aerospace, which holds contracts with NASA and was a primary contractor for the Department of Defense’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters
Elon Musk Musk is hell-bent on using his $21 billion to colonize Mars. His company SpaceX has been trying desperately to reduce the cost of space travel in the hopes of beginning a million-person colonization of Mars. “If [we’re not in] a simulation, then maybe we’re in a lab and there’s some advanced alien civilization that’s just watching how we develop, out of curiosity, like mold in a petri dish,” says Musk.
Photo: Paul Gallen/Twitter
Paul Allen When Congress cut off funding for NASA’s hunt for aliens in 1993, Allen gave millions to the SETI Institute; in 2009, the Allen Telescope Array started searching the cosmos. Allen has given an additional $30 million to the project, a sum that bought him a guarantee that if the array detects an extraterrestrial communiqué, Allen will be the first nonscientist to know.
Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Breaktrough Prize Foundation
Yuri Milner Last year, Milner — named after a Russian cosmonaut — announced a plan to send spaceships to Saturn’s moon Enceladus in search of alien life. Milner is also funding Breakthrough Listen, a ten-year project to use a telescope in West Virginia to search for messages from intelligent life, and Breakthrough Starshot, in conjunction with Mark Zuckerberg and the late Stephen Hawking.
Jeff Bezos His company Blue Origin is competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch reusable rockets (and comically rich tourists) into space. While Musk played himself in a cameo in Iron Man 2, Bezos appeared as an alien Starfleet official in 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. (It was not a speaking role.)
“Why do I feel so much like Sigourney Weaver?” Bezos said last March as he piloted a giant manned robot at Amazon’s MARs conference.
Franklin Antonio Antonio cofounded Qualcomm, a mobile tech company, in the mid-’80s. He’s also the company’s chief scientist and has given millions to SETI research. Last year Antonio gave $30 million to the University of California San Diego’s school of engineering and followed that donation up with a contribution to Roy Moore’s failed senate campaign.
8. As Are Some Prominent Military and Government Folks
You see a lot more as a test pilot than as a farmer in Iowa.
Nick Pope “Know that there are people who watch our skies to protect the sleeping masses,” Britain’s former chief UFO investigator warns in his memoir. “But also know that not all potential intruders into our airspace have two wings, a fuselage, and a tail, and not all show up on our radar.” Pope’s ominous counsel follows time he spent in the ’90s inspecting thousands of paranormal incidents from crop circles to purported bedside abductions. He took that job certain this kind of stuff “only happened to weirdos,” but unexplainable sightings soon convinced him that “there is a war going on” with aliens. Worse, the U.K. Defense Ministry cut his old UFO desk’s funding in 2009, so whatever’s out there “could attack at any time,” Pope believes. Earthlings’ diminished odds have gotten him more fatalistic lately, too: After scientists suggested ‘Oumuamua — a bizarre-shaped asteroid that’s the first interstellar object to pass through our solar system — might be an alien spaceship, he argued in December we “probably wouldn’t survive an alien invasion” anyway, because if they find us, it’s clear who has the upper hand.
Paul Hellyer Canada’s Defense minister during the Cold War, now 94, believes that at least 80 species of aliens have been visiting Earth for millennia. One group is called the Tall Whites (because they can reach basketball-goal height) or Nordic Blondes (because they look like they’re “from Denmark or somewhere”). Unfortunately, the others may include ecoterrorists: “We’re doing all sorts of things which are not what good stewards of their homes should be doing,” he told media in 2014. “They don’t like that, and they’ve made it very clear.” Hellyer adds that many technological “breakthroughs” were aped from these extraterrestrials. Microchips and fiber optics, for instance, were taken off crashed alien vehicles and reverse-engineered. The aliens have a special technology that would solve climate change as well, he claims, but the Illuminati are hiding it because it would devastate oil interests.
Philip Corso Corso’s military career was long and illustrious, from rebuilding Rome’s government after World War II as an Army Intelligence captain to having worked the Pentagon’s foreign-technology desk in the ’60s. He doesn’t appear to have said a word publicly about aliens until 1997, when Simon & Schuster published The Day After Roswell — with a foreword by Strom Thurmond — just 13 months before Corso died. It was his tell-all outlining a decades-long Roswell cover-up while plugging his own clandestine exploits, which he claimed involved reverse-engineering technology found on alien spacecrafts. This is how the world got lasers, particle beams, microchips, even Kevlar, Corso said. Skeptics argue that regular Earth people’s R&D behind technology like lasers is impossibly well documented.
Barry Goldwater Had he won election in 1964, one of his White House’s first acts might have been releasing top-secret UFO files. He harbored a lifelong fascination with the truth about extraterrestrial contact, much of it stemming from his desire to “find out what was in” the mysterious Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, home to the Air Force’s Project Blue Book. In the ’80s, it surfaced he’d spent decades corresponding with UFO investigators and harassing the military for access to the hangar’s so-called Blue Room, where conspiracy theorists believe alien bodies from Roswell are preserved. (“Not only can’t you get into it,” his friend General Curtis LeMay supposedly snapped in 1975, “but don’t you ever mention it to me again.” Goldwater claims he didn’t.) After retiring in 1987, the senator toldLarry King the Earth is “one of several billion planets in this universe. I can’t believe that God or whoever is in charge would put thinking bodies on only one planet.”
Roscoe Hillenkoetter After he’d served as the first CIA director (he’d been appointed by President Truman), Hillenkoetter retired from a distinguished Navy career in 1957 and took a gig at a brand-new private research group called the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Its chief purpose was pressuring the government to disclose what it knew about UFOs, via investigations like Project Blue Book. Hillenkoetter went after the intelligence community, writing angry open letters that said things like: “It is time for the truth to be brought out in open congressional hearings.” When he pointed out in 1960 that the Air Force had investigated 6,312 UFO reports to date, but was seemingly trying “to hide the facts,” the military reminded Americans that “no physical evidence, not even a minute fragment of a so-called flying saucer, has ever been found.”
Of course, another theory popped up in the ’80s — that Hillenkoetter had helped run a secret committee all along of politicians, military officers, and scientists called the Majestic 12. Ufologists claimed this cabal was formed in 1947, once Truman started panicking over what to do with all the alien spacecrafts the government kept finding. The group’s existence is based on government files that allegedly materialized in 1984. The FBI denied their authenticity entirely, but they and the Majestic 12 remain popular grist for conspiracy theories, having figured in Blink-182’s song “Aliens Exist” and even one of Twin Peaks’s side plots.
Dennis Kucinich Kucinich’s 2008 presidential campaign didn’t suffer from his admission, made during a live TV debate, that, back in 1982, he’d seen a UFO at friend Shirley MacLaine’s Washington State home. (He was polling around 4 percent at the time.) But the current candidate for Ohio governor got mocked plenty; one joke among Beltway insiders was he wanted the “little green vote.”
Staff were prepped to deny the encounter when reporters asked about the passage in MacLaine’s 2007 New Age self-help book, Sage-ing While Age-ing, that revealed Kucinich didn’t just see a UFO but had also felt “a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind.” The other witnesses — a Juilliard-trained trumpeter working as MacLaine’s bodyguard and his model girlfriend — also report having seen a trio of triangle-shaped aircrafts flying in tight formation. Her house was 50 miles from Mt. Rainier, a “saucer magnet” for UFO buffs because of all the nearby sightings, including America’s very first “flying saucer” in 1947. Kucinich had the community’s full support, even if he spent years playing coy.
It helped that in Congress he did things like trying to ban space-based weapons. A 2001 bill he authored himself prohibited America from using “radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies” for the purposes of “information war, mood management, or mind control of such populations.” It explicitly singled out “chemtrails,” a term for jet condensation trails when conspiracy theorists believe they’re being used for biological warfare. In 2008, however, he only confirmed he’d seen a UFO, then pointed out, accurately, to moderator Tim Russert that “more people in this country have seen UFOs than I think approve of George Bush’s presidency.”
John Podesta When WikiLeaks published the Hillary Clinton emails, a weird number of Podesta’s mentioned aliens and involved contact with believers like Tom DeLonge and astronaut Edgar Mitchell. As Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, he was known as an X-Files fanatic who’d “call the Air Force and ask them what’s going on in Area 51.” In 2014, he spent 13 months advising President Obama — and what was his “biggest failure”? According to him, failing to get government files declassified on the 1965 Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, UFO incident. Then during Bush’s term, he began publicly crusading for NASA to release UFO documents to journalist Leslie Kean, the person ultimately behind the Times’ Pentagon exposé.
Podesta has kept his personal ET beliefs under wraps, but in Kean’s best seller UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record, he gamely wrote a foreword that argues: “It’s time to find out what the truth really is … The American people — and people around the world — want to know, and they can handle the truth.”
Pavel and Marina Popovich This husband-wife duo was one part world-renowned cosmonaut (Pavel) and one part the Soviet Union’s most celebrated female pilot (Marina). They held among their titles that of sixth human in orbit, first Soviet female to break the sound barrier, and holder of more than 100 aviation world records. Once their illustrious flying careers ended, both became ufologists. Pavel headed up Russia’s UFO association and claimed to have seen an unidentified aircraft zip past his airplane on a trip home from Washington, D.C., with a group of scientists. People onboard said it was triangular, brightly lit, and rocketed by at 1,000 miles per hour.
Marina one-upped him, though — she claimed to have seen multiple UFOs and a “Bigfoot creature” — and after they divorced, she became the acclaimed expert, not Pavel. She began preaching a UFO glasnost of sorts under Gorbachev, claiming the Soviet government had pieces of five spaceships in its possession and reports of 14,000 UFO sightings, yet for decades researchers were “either fired or put in psychiatric hospitals.” Her eventual book, simply called UFO Glasnost, spoke candidly about how Leonardo da Vinci, Jules Verne, and Ray Bradbury were alien mediums and Gorbachev had the markings of an extraterrestrial emissary because “he’s an epoch-making phenomenon.”
—Clint Rainey
9. (And This Genius Thinks He Can Talk to Them)
In January, Stephen Wolfram — a computer-scientist philosopher and the author of a “universal” programming language that informed the alien communication in the movie Arrival— wrote an exceedingly long blog post about how best to communicate with aliens.
Tim Urban: You created a language you think we might be able to use to communicate with aliens. So what exactly is it that we would want to say to the rest of the universe if we had the chance?
Stephen Wolfram: I think the main difficulty is the definitional one. You talk about alien life, you talk about intelligence; what are those things abstractly?
We know the specific example that we have historically been exposed to: life on Earth, human intelligence. The question is, when you generalize away from that, what do you get to? One of the things that I’m fond of quoting is the statement “The weather has a mind of its own.” What does this mean? What is the abstract kind of thing that’s like the mind? It’s the ability to do sophisticated computation. That’s something that exists in the weather, just as it exists in our brains, just as it exists in lots of living systems. And then, what’s different between the weather and its sort-of-mindlike thing and our human intelligence? The fundamental answer to that is our human intelligence has its particular cultural, civilizational history and the weather doesn’t.
TU: So is it that history that we’d want to communicate?
SW: Yes, I think the thing to realize is that we in our civilization have followed a particular path. There are an infinite number of possible paths that we could’ve followed. To any other intelligence, our path would be quite mysterious.
TU: Right, so we actually have unique information to communicate. You could have the most sophisticated species, and we can still tell them something they don’t know about our history.
SW: I’m particularly amused by Elon Musk’s car going into space. That is so extremely aligned with the notion of grave goods from ancient Egypt, where you’re taking things from your everyday life to be buried with you. It’s charming.
10. There Have Been Enough Well-Known Encounters to Fill Encyclopedias
Here, just a small sampling of the classics.
Barney and Betty Hill. Photo: Bettman Archive/Getty Images
Barney and Betty Hill’s Abduction The Hills (above) claimed that in 1961 a bright light swooped over their car on a New Hampshire road and that they woke up a few hours later and the car had been “magnetized.” With regressive hypnosis, both were able to recall being abducted and probed by the little gray men, which soon became the de facto alien description. (The Hills’ captors were, interestingly, very similar to Selenites — the five-foot moon inhabitants H.G. Wells invented for The First Men in the Moon.) Betty astonished authorities when she began drawing a map of the constellation the creatures claimed to be from. Initially it looked like nonsense, until a few scientists noticed its resemblance to Zeta Reticuli, a system inside the constellation Reticulum largely unknown in that year. Their case generated widespread publicity, partly because they were a mixed-race couple in the ’60s, and turned into the flagship example of a “close encounter,” though not until years after the fact (skeptics argue the delayed report is a sign it’s a hoax). The hype ultimately culminated in The UFO Incident, a 1975 made-for-TV movie starring James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons.
Antonio Villas-Boas’s Seduction In 1957, small aliens with huge heads allegedly came for Villas-Boas, a young Brazilian farmer. Villas-Boas was forced inside their vessel, where the creatures took blood samples from, of all places, his chin, and rubbed in some sort of gel. Soon after, a blonde female with big, almond-shaped eyes joined him. She began rubbing his body, then initiated sex. After they were done, she left quickly, which gave Villas-Boas the impression that he was being used to better the aliens’ “stock.” He didn’t react well, as he suddenly felt exploited as “a good stallion” by these foreign chin-fetishists.
Weird as it was, Boas’s encounter, with its probing and forced sex, became the archetypal alien abduction. Reportedly skittish at first, he eventually told his story to João Martins, the writer behind popular magazine O Cruzeiro’s “Flying Saucers’ Terrible Mission” series. Doctors confirmed Boas had suffered radiation poisoning, but Martins ultimately soured on Boas’s story, for one because his spaceship sketch bore remarkable similarities to the Soviet Union’s Sputnik. He turned out all right, though: He got a law degree, had four kids, and died believing his children had a half-sibling living in space.
The “Wow!” Signal In 1977, Ohio State’s Big Ear radio telescope intercepted a 72-second burst of sound that bore signs of having come from interstellar space, which could be a sign of extraterrestrial communication. The anomaly measured 1,420 megahertz, a frequency in the “water hole,” the term for a radio-emission range thought ideal for intergalactic messages because it’s unusually quiet. Jerry Ehman, the astronomer who spotted it, was so excited that he scribbled a giant “Wow!” on his printout. Astronomy’s explanations for the bizarre phenomenon include secret spy satellites and a passing comet nobody knew about in 1977. But many admit nothing explains it adequately, and even if the signal doesn’t prove aliens exist, it’s still a “tug on the cosmic fishing line.” To date, it remains the best evidence of alien communication ever obtained.
Foo Fighters In the middle of World War II, things took a mysterious turn for Air Force pilots flying overnight missions. They reported seeing lights chasing their aircraft. The number varied (sometimes it was one; other times ten), and so did the colors (red, orange, and green). But the unidentified objects shared in common that they moved very fast, up to 200 miles per hour, yet could dart on a dime. These pilots — among the world’s best — admitted the objects generally flew circles around them. Their lore grew among the squadrons. In 1944, a crew flying along the Rhine in Germany described seeing “eight to ten bright orange lights” whiz by “at high speed.” Neither ground control nor their own planes caught anything on radar, and when one pilot turned toward the lights, they reportedly “disappeared.”
They called their mystery air companions “foo fighters,” an inside joke based on a phrase the comic-book character Smokey Stover used to declare (“Where there’s foo, there’s fire”). The term flying saucer hadn’t caught on yet, or else it would’ve sufficed. Some witnesses assumed they were tracer fire, reflections from ice crystals, or high-tech weaponry developed by the Nazis, while the government had a boring explanation as always: They were “electrostatic (similar to St. Elmo’s fire) or electromagnetic phenomena,” though which one and wherefrom were “never defined.”
Kecksburg UFO Crash In 1965, an intense fireball streaked over southern Canada and Detroit and dropped debris over Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Officially, it was declared a midsize meteor, but eyewitnesses in the small Pennsylvania town of Kecksburg claimed they’d found an acorn-shaped object about the size of a VW Beetle in the woods that was festooned with hieroglyphics. Newspaper reporters on the ground said the military conducted a “close inspection” of the crash site, and despite the official line being that the search yielded “absolutely nothing,” conspiracists maintain the object was packed onto an Army flatbed truck and that the whole thing was a Roswell-level cover-up. Leslie Kean’s Coalition for the Freedom of Information managed to secure some of the government’s files but reportedly not anything enlightening.
However, a second explanation surfaced in the early aughts: It was Die Glocke, purportedly a top-secret weapon Nazis developed that let them time-travel. By dumb Back to the Future–esque luck, it had come to rural Pennsylvania in the year 1965. These proponents argue Nazi SS officer Hans Kammler was navigating the device when it crash-landed in Kecksburg, allowing him to escape Allied troops in the days before VE Day and successfully integrate into postwar U.S. society.
Kenneth Arnold’s “Flying Saucer” Kenneth Arnold, a respected pilot, claimed in 1947 he’d seen nine mostly flat objects whip past Mount Rainier at speeds he timed at 1,760 miles per hour. “They were shaped like saucers,” he reportedly explained, “and were so thin I could barely see them.” A neologism was born.
Arnold he demanded military personnel explain what the contraptions were, if they knew, since he’d dismissed any possibility of them being guided missiles or new types of jets. His best guess? “From another planet.” Dozens of others came forward with similar sightings, from as far away as Oklahoma and Arizona. But Arnold didn’t enjoy his newfound celebrity. He said people had started shrieking in cafés when they saw him and fleeing. He described the situation to reporters as “out of hand” and regretted having people “look at me as a combination of Einstein, Flash Gordon, and screwball.”
Phoenix Lights On March 13, 1997, thousands of people in southern Arizona say they saw weird lights move across the night sky in a flying V. Most of their reports came in between 7 and 10:30 p.m. along a 300-mile stretch from Phoenix, through Tucson, and to the Mexico border. A majority of people spied the pattern passing overhead (it was supposedly several football fields long), but the Air Force also sent a team of A-10 Warthogs from nearby Barry Goldwater Range on a training exercise that same night, and, as luck would have it, those planes dropped some stationary flares just outside Phoenix, considerably complicating any UFO conspiracies with a second set of strange bright lights.
Witnesses claim to have watched the first set of lights — the low-altitude wedge formation — coast by with their binoculars; they say the lights were red, had a singular white one at the V’s tip, seemed engineless, and even banked southeast at one point. Actor Kurt Russell now claims he saw them while up in a private plane near the Phoenix airport, but air-traffic control told him the radar was clear. Governor Fife Symington reportedly witnessed the V-shaped as well. At the time he felt sure it wasn’t aliens, but his mind changed in 2007, after retiring from politics: He told media that as a pilot, he knows “just about every machine that flies,” and these lights definitely weren’t terrestrial.
The “Warminster Thing” Warminster’s long, controversial association with UFOs began in the English town on Christmas Day in 1964, when a local woman heard a “crackling sound” rip over her head. Other so-called sonic attacks plagued scores of others in town around the same time. Townspeople had no clue what was behind them, so they began blaming the “Thing.” Additional reports of inexplicable lights in the sky made it clear the “Thing” might have hailed from outer space.
Travis Walton’s Abduction In 1975, a team of loggers claimed their 22-year-old co-worker Travis Walton disappeared for five days after a glowing disc in the Arizona woods zapped him with a “bluish ray.” Intrigued, he’d reportedly wandered underneath the hovering object, and it abducted him. He claims he awoke on a table in a sterile-looking room surrounded by three “well-developed fetuses” wearing tan robes. He tried to flee, passed out, then regained consciousness only once the aliens had ditched him on the Arizona roadside.
The story received loads of publicity — authorities thought Walton had been murdered, and seven eyewitnesses corroborating a single close encounter was unheard of. The National Enquirer ultimately paid the group $5,000 for the story, after they passed polygraphs and Walton agreed to be interviewed by the tabloid’s “prestigious” hypnotist. In 1993, Paramount released Fire in the Sky, a movie it said was based on “the most famous case of UFO abduction ever recorded.” Skeptics have shot holes in what they assume was a hoax and note that James Earl Jones’s NBC movie The UFO Incident had aired two weeks before Walton’s own UFO incident. The encounter has a cult following to this day, though, enough that a first edition of Walton’s 1978 memoir The Walton Experience now fetches hundreds of dollars online.
The Battle of Los Angeles On February 25, 1942, reports filtered in of a glowing object floating over Culver City. Air-raid sirens sounded; the Army proceeded to pepper it with 1,400 anti-aircraft shells. Eventually it disappeared from view, but not before a citywide blackout was ordered, shell fragments got lodged in surrounding buildings, and five civilians died. The Navy later explained it had been a weather balloon. But ufologists suspected an alien spacecraft, which would explain why an hour’s worth of heavy artillery had failed to eliminate a single weather balloon.
Steven Spielberg would mercilessly satirize the incident in 1941, a “comedy spectacular.” But ufologists immediately suspected an alien spacecraft, which would explain why an hours’ worth of heavy artillery had failed to eliminate a single weather balloon. Conspiracists site a famous L.A. Times photo as extra proof; it seemingly caught searchlights trained on a very un-balloon-like object getting barraged with shells. The next day’s Times ran an editorial on page A1 (“Information, Please”) demanding the Army and Navy release more info, “if only to clarify their own conflicting statements about it.”
New encounters happen all the time — even to famous people. When Guillermo del Toro spotted one in Guadalajara, he says, “It was so crappy. It was a flying saucer, so clichéd, with lights.” Above, a sampling from ufosightingsdaily.com over recent months.
January 18, Japan. Photo: Ufosightingsdaily
February 4, Popocatépetl, Mexico. Photo: Ufosightingsdaily
February 28, Cleveland, Ohio. Photo: Ufosightingsdaily
March 7, Bangs, Texas. Photo: Ufosightingsdaily
12. We Even Have Some Pretty Developed Theories About Why We Haven’t Heard From ET Yet
Maybe we’re the pond scum.
The Aliens Are All Dead Let’s start with the most depressing theory: Maybe we haven’t found extraterrestrials because they’re all dead — at least now. The universe is 13.78 billion years old, and in that amount of time, there might have been plenty of civilizations that evolved and went extinct.
The Aliens Are All Sleeping But maybe they’re not dead — just hibernating. Another theory suggests that perhaps there’s an extraterrestrial species out there that’s so advanced it cannot efficiently make use of its technology right now, because the universe’s temperature is currently too high. Good news, though: The universe’s temperature is cooling down (even as Earth’s is heating up). So aliens may have decided to take a snooze for a few trillion years while they wait for colder weather that’s more suited.
The Aliens Are Hiding If even a genius like Stephen Hawking thought that aliens might destroy us if they ever were to find us, then maybe we should be a little afraid. Perhaps the aliens think the same thing, so they’ve gone into hiding — from us. If another civilization were technologically savvy enough and had enough resources, it could build a massive orbital structure like a Dyson sphere to keep it cloaked from detection. Or it might use high-powered lasers to provide an optical façade that keeps its planet from being detected by telescopic instruments.
The Aliens Are Still Evolving Maybe alien life is actually everywhere — it’s just not intelligent enough to speak with us. It took about 3.5 billion years of evolution to turn single-celled microbes into humans. Maybe we just happened to evolve faster and earlier than everyone else.
Humans Haven’t Spent Enough Time Looking Realistically speaking, we’ve only had the proper equipment to search for aliens for a little over half a century. On the scale of the cosmos, that time frame is less than a fraction of the blink of an eye. The process could take centuries or even millennia — optimistically speaking.
The Aliens Are Already Here This is where the conspiracy theorists get to go nuts. Yes, maybe the aliens are already here and we just haven’t figured it out yet. They might be taking some time to study us before unveiling themselves, or maybe they have already let themselves be known to certain groups. The truth isn’t out there — it’s here.
—N.P.
13. And in the Meantime, Aliens Can Be Whatever We Want Them to Be
Katie Heaney: Why, when we think of aliens, do they all look the same — three feet tall, gray or green, big black eyes?
Joseph O. Baker: It didn’t used to be that way. UFO narratives became much more popular in the 1950s and ’60s, and during that era, the descriptions of the aliens would be almost humanlike in form. If you see drawings that some of the so-called contactees made, the aliens almost look like Swedish people — very attractive blond types with shining eyes. The abductee narrative really took over pop culture in the 1970s and ’80s, and after that, there’s this homogenization of the public perception because of all the stories and TV and movies about abductions.
KH: Even those guys look pretty human — why do we have such a hard time imagining radically different forms of life?
JB: We’re the people doing the projecting here. Much the same way people do with God — really, what sense does it make for a supernatural entity to have a gender or be humanoid Anthropomorphized supernatural entities tend to be more compelling.
KH: Is there a reason why so many of the abduction stories feature “probing”?
JB: The probe part of the abduction narrative took over in some sense because it tends to be the most salacious aspect of these stories. It’s almost become shorthand for alien abduction. But the stories of abduction among believers are really diverse, and usually probing is only one small part of it. Men will report having sperm extraction, and women will report having eggs extracted. Positive encounters tend to be akin to religion in some ways, in which beings of higher enlightenment show people the errors of humanity, or help them reach a higher plane of consciousness.
KH: Who is likely to believe?
JB: Men, and people with lower levels of income, are more likely to believe. We don’t really find strong patterns by education, and if we do, there’s usually a slight positive effect. But one of the strongest predictors you can find for believers is their extreme distrust of the government. That’s part of the reason it got so big in the ’70s, when trust in institutions was low. Trump might actually increase belief in UFOs.
Another one of the strongest predictors is not participating as strongly in forms of organized religion. In some sense, there’s a bit of a clue there about what’s going on with belief — it’s providing an alternative belief system.
KH: Most alien-encounter stories give aliens one of two motives: Either they want something from us or they want to kill us. What does that say about us?
JB: It shows that we have a high level of perceived self-importance. The idea that, in this vast universe, these beings sought us out in this tiny corner of the spiral arm of the Milky Way to come learn omething from us, or eliminate us, is a bit flattering.
KH: I’ve heard that sightings are way down in the smartphone era, when people presumably don’t take a story as proof enough.
JB: Well, it’s easier to hoax things now than it used to be. I would think that with an increased availability of videos, if it was going to do anything, it might lead to more belief, but from most of what I’ve seen, it looks more like stasis. Rates of reported sightings and rate of belief have been pretty stable. The 2005 Baylor Religion Survey found that 25 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Some UFOs are probably spaceships from other worlds.”
ABriefHistoryof‘AlienDreams’
1899: Nikola Tesla notices rhythmic sounds on a radio receiver and is convinced they’re communications from Martians.
1924: At the request of David Todd, former head of the astronomy department at Amherst College, the Navy agrees to limit unnecessary radio communications from its largest bases for one day so that he can listen for alien signals as Mars passes closer to Earth than it’s been in over a century.
1960: The modern search for ETs begins when Frank Drake uses an 85-foot radio telescope in the hills of West Virginia to scan stars for signs of intelligent life; he later develops an equation to estimate the number of advanced civilizations.
1969: Jimmy Carter, candidate for Georgia governor at the time, sees a strange light.
1992: NASA formally begins its own SETI program.
1993: Congress eliminates funding for NASA’s SETI program.
1999: UC Berkeley launches SETI@home, a screen saver available to the public that enables anyone’s idle computer to analyze data collected by radio telescopes.
2016: Breakthrough Listen launches; it will collect as much data in a day as past SETI projects collected in a year.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Stanton Friedman – UFO Research Pioneer – March 20, 2018
Stanton Friedman – UFO Research Pioneer – March 20, 2018
Open Minds UFO Radio: After more than 50 years of researching and publicly speaking about UFOs, former nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman is doing his victory lap. After a historic career conducting over 700 lectures, writing six books, and countless media interviews, Stanton is retiring from Ufology. To honor Stanton’s work and learn from his unique experience, Open minds UFO Radio will conduct several interviews with him over the next few months. In this interview, we talk about how Stanton got started becoming the face of ufology.
Golden UFOs Seen Leaving Mountain Peeks Of Sedona, Arizona On March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Golden UFOs Seen Leaving Mountain Peeks Of Sedona, Arizona On March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 2018 Location of sighting: Sedona, Arizona, USA Source: MUFON #90899 Bright golden lights were seen at Sedona this week in the mountains. The bright lights were caught in two different photos, always in the same location. The mountains would make a great exit area for UFOs that were leaving an underground base in the area. Also in the clouds above the mountains is another golden UFO. Its unknown if the lights were seen by the eyewitness or when they got home, but often cameras catch the full activities of the moment, where the human eye is more flawed and processes much less. Scott C. Waring
Home Security Camera Records A Fairy Visiting In London, England, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Home Security Camera Records A Fairy Visiting In London, England, Photos, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: April 10, 2013 Location of sighting: London, Great Britain Source: MUFON #90907
This report took place back in 2013, but was reported today. Look closely at the objects that were caught on a outside home security camera and you will notice a strange resemblance to a fairy. Could they be an alien species visiting this planet? Yes, most likely. Stories of fairies have existed for hundreds of years. For a story to last so long, some truth must be in it. Humanity only knows a small percent of the life that exists on our own planet, and this could be a species that has visited often enough that stories of the little flying people have spread far and wide. Scott C. Waring
Was Stephen Hawking murdered to stop him from revealing the existence of aliens? UFO Sighting News.
Was Stephen Hawking murdered to stop him from revealing the existence of aliens? UFO Sighting News.
Was Stephen Hawking murdered to stop him from revealing top secret information about the existence of aliens? People have been killed for much less, and its easy for someone to be killed an make it look of natural causes. However, in his case, he really did look exhausted in the last few months of his life. It was clear his ailments were taking a huge toll on him. You decide, tell us in the comments below please. Scott C. Waring UFOMania of Youtube states:
A stunning new Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) circulating in the Kremlin today claims it is “more than likely” that world renowned British Theoretical Physicist Stephen Hawking was murdered as his 14 March death came just 10 days after his 4 March revision to his scientific research paper titled “A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?”
A plane passenger taking pictures of the rising sun in Texas made an odd discovery Sunday after he noticed a bizarre orange triangle standing out like a sore thumb in his photos.
The images, which were taken around 6:30 a.m., were quickly shared with popular YouTube page "UFOmania — The truth is out there" on Monday and labeled as evidence of a "strange, flaming-looking triangular UFO."
Gaining more than 9,000 views, the group's video has thrown conspiracy theorists into a tizzy, with some saying the footage proves that UFOs are everywhere. *dun, dun, dun*
"I live in Dallas," one YouTube commenter wrote. "[I] can confirm that the skies are currently full of flying, shape shifting, demonic, reptilian plasma monsters." And possibly Doritos.
Another wrote, "We see them all the time here with other UFO crafts. Where we are is always something in the sky early morning [and] at night."
Others speculated that the mysterious aircraft could've been the TR-3B, an alleged secret government plane that can reportedly go undetected on air traffic radars, according to Military.com.
Not all netizens immediately saw alien life forms or secret US government projects, however.
"Reflection off of the plane window," one user wrote. "Just once would one of these people take a photo that is not blurry."
UFO PROOF? Shock footage emerges of 'ALIEN AIRCRAFT in pursuit of jet liner'
UFO PROOF? Shock footage emerges of 'ALIEN AIRCRAFT in pursuit of jet liner'
SHOCKING footage has emerged of a UFO in pursuit of a jet liner that could be the greatest evidence that aliens exist and have visited Earth that has left witnesses stunned, it has been claimed.
The video shows a jet in “hot pursuit” of another craft in the sky that was claimed to be “some of the best evidence” of UFO’s by YouTube channel “thirdphaseofmoon”.
The man who filmed the craft stated that he did a “double take” as soon as he saw looked into the sky in New Hampshire.
He stated: "I was reading on my deck around 7 o'clock.
"I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I've always enjoyed seeing them fly through.
Getty • YouTube thirdphaseofmoon
YouTube viewers were decidedly split on the footage that claims to prove the existence of UFO’s
"This happens all the time, jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.
"I immediately thought I was witnessing some strange aircraft, possibly military but it was not a jet.
"I knew it wasn't a jet because it was actually right behind one. The jet it was chasing left a long contrail behind it, but the UFO did not.”
The witness added that the “UFO was gaining on the jet” and declared that he was “blown away” by the incident.
He went on: "The UFO was gaining on a jet. No helicopter could do that. I was blown away and luckily got out my phone in time to take a video.”
The footage is believed to have been taken in 2016, but has surfaced for public viewing for the first time on YouTube.
The cameraman stated that it would be “very hard” to write off the incident as a “weather balloon” or another aircraft.
He went on: "I watched the object gaining on the jet for about 10 seconds when I lost them in the trees.
"I was very excited and anxious. I felt I have witnessed something very hard to dismiss as a 'weather balloon' or some obvious type of aircraft.
"Shortly after the jet and object left my range of sight I saw three more jets and 1 helicopter going the same direction, in my opinion, chasing the UFO."
YouTube thirdphaseofmoon
The footage is believed to have been taken in 2016
YouTube thirdphaseofmoon
The cameraman stated that it would be 'very hard' to write off the incident as a 'weather balloon'
YouTube viewers were decidedly split on the footage that claims to prove the existence of UFO’s.
One commented: “Great evidence...keep your eyes on the skies...the truth will come from above..eyes open!”
Filer’s Files #11 – 2018 Trump’s Space Force - PART I
Bangs, Texas -- strange object photographed March 7, 2018
Filer’s Files #11 – 2018 Trump’s Space Force - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: The Military Keeps Encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon Care? Undersea UFO Base. Trump states, We May Even Have a Space Force, National Space Defense Center, Venus May Have Been Habitable, Venus Rising Trilogy, and China’s on Track to Contain the World’s Largest Christian Population
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Australia, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers. These files are dedicated to my wife, Janet P. Filer for being everything that I’m not. For putting up with everything I am. For stitching me together whenever I bleed. For taking care of me and being the love of my life. .
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Forward to your friends and neighbors
Special Projects
The Military Keeps Encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon Care?
We have no idea what’s behind these weird incidents because we’re not investigating. The existence of UFOs using technology more advanced than anything on Earth has been proved “beyond reasonable doubt,” according to Luis Elizondo, the former head of a secret US government program that studied UFOs. Elizondo, who quit as head of the program is now part of Tom DeLonge’s ‘To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences’ (TTSASS) team. After an early military career in Army Intelligence, Elizondo was assigned to a position in the Pentagon where he was surprised to learn that he was chosen to study the UFO issue and believes we may not be alone.
His immediate supervisors had no knowledge of this part of his duties because of the compartmentalized nature of the project, meaning only those directly involved in the program had a “need to know.” After his initial shock, Elizondo realized that it was “definitely a profound topic to be exploring.” Luis Elizondo, used to run the Pentagon’s intelligence UFO program that examined evidence of “anomalous” aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data.
Elizondo said the Defense Department was concerned with anything that was not readily identified by witnesses, radar, or other sensing technology. The famous USS Nimitz UFO event and video footage was just one example, he said, and added that “there were other events that occurred like the Nimitz, and not in the distant past.” Elizondo also mentioned that reports from military witnesses included physical effects such as feelings of nausea or “a weird loss of time perception.” He also confirmed that military hardware has been affected or disabled during UFO encounters.
Aliens would interfere with nuclear weapons not because they are dangerous to life here or elsewhere, but because nuclear weapons are a threat to what the aliens wish to collect from Earth or if they decide to stay here.
It has been well documented that for 60 years or more, UFOs have been monitoringnuclear weapons facilities, and in some situations have actively interfered with nuclear weapons. Many UFO researchers have interpreted this as a sign that extraterrestrials were trying to warn humanity of the global threat posed by nuclear weapons. They told abductees they would interfere in a nuclear war.
Elizondo said, Robert Bigelow directed the remodeling of buildings that allegedly hold debris from alien craft. He discussed the controversial “alloy” or “meta material” in the possession of Robert Bigelow’s company (shown) and said that it shows unusual properties when tested and contains “isotopic ratios that are very unique.” As for the UAPs themselves, Elizondo has not made up his mind as to whether they are “from outer space, inner space, or the space in between.”
Indeed, numerous individuals claiming to have been contacted or abducted by extraterrestrials since the early 1950s have made a similar point. Springer’s comments reveal the contrasting conclusion drawn by the Pentagon in their planning scenario.
Christopher Mellon an adviser to the To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations reports on UFO sightings.
In December, the Defense Department declassified two videos documenting encounters between U.S. Navy F-18 fighters and unidentified aircraft. The first video captures multiple pilots observing and discussing a strange, hovering, egg-shaped craft, apparently one of a “fleet” of such objects, according to cockpit audio. The second shows a similar incident involving an F-18 attached to the USS Nimitz carrier battle group in 2004. Apparently there were numerous UFOs.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
Undersea UFO Base.
For 100 years, strange activity has been occurring off the southern California Coast near Malibu. Mile for mile, this area is one of the top producers of USOs (unidentified submersible objects) in the entire world. Drawing on firsthand testimonies from the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, police officers, lifeguards, residents and many others, Researcher Preston Dennett presents a compelling case for the possible existence of an undersea UFO base. California has been a UFO hot spot for years, so when it was theorized that a structure discovered 600 meters (2,000 feet) below the water 10 kilometers (6 miles) off the coast of Malibu was in fact an alien base, it didn’t come as that much of a surprise. The structure has a distinct oval shape and what appears to be underwater entrances.
Possible USOs Base in the Santa Catalina Channel
Sightings of weird lights, anomalous glowing clouds, objects flying in and out of the water, mass UFO sightings, humanoid encounters–they’re all here. More than ten years of research, was presented here for the first time. Using Google earth, someone had obtained images of what appeared to be an undersea base right off the California coast, in the direct center of where all the USO activity was taking place! The images were startling, and the story again caught fire. Submarine Sonar (originally an acronym for SOund Navigation And Ranging) hydrophones has picked up fast moving underwater objects moving at several hundred knots. This speed is triple human submarines. The truth about this area can no longer be denied: something very strange is lurking in these waters.
Inside Undersea UFO Base you will find:
more than 70 cases of UFOs over the water. more than 70 cases of USOs in the water.
firsthand eyewitness testimonies from a wide variety of military witnesses.
mass UFO sightings, some involving hundreds of objects.
humanoid encounters, including abductions to an apparent base.
an in-depth exploration of the “Malibu Anomaly.”
photographs of UFOs and USOs, witnesses and encounter locations.
original USO accounts from across the world.
Is there really an Undersea UFO Base off the southern California Coast? The evidence can be found inside this unique and groundbreaking book.
The new book, “Undersea UFO Base: An In-Depth Investigation,” is now available on Amazon and other online retailers. Undersea UFO Base
Trump states, We May Even Have a Space Force.”
Colin Clarkon writes, “In a somewhat surreal scenario, President Donald J. Trump yesterday remarked on the idea of a “Space Force,” something he’d clearly been briefed on at some point. After telling an audience at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar that “space is a war fighting domain,” Trump tossed off the idea “that “we may even have a space force.”
Trump wandered among topics such as going to Mars — “Very soon we’re going to Mars. You wouldn’t have been going to Mars if my opponent had won. You wouldn’t even be thinking about it” — and then to a Space Corps.
“You know I was saying it the other day, because we’re doing a tremendous amount in space, maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it the space force, and I was not really serious, and then I was, what a great idea. Maybe we need to do that.”
The Space Corps, which would relate to the Air Force as the Marine Corps does to the Navy, has been pushed hard by Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, and his ranking member, Rep. Jim Cooper.
The simple fact that President Trump mentioned this before a military audience and has clearly devoted some thought to it may indicate a space force already exists to protect the satellites or as part of the Star Wars ballistic missile system. There have been frequent stories of UFOs crashing with apparent damage allegedly caused by the anti ballistic missile defense capability missiles . A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon system that inflicts damage at a target by emission of highly focused energy, including laser, microwaves and particle beams hey can have much greater speed and range than conventional weapons, therefore, are suitable for use in space warfare.
National Space Defense Center
It will focus on “information sharing in space defense operations among the DoD, National Reconnaissance Office, the (NSDC) and other interagency partners,” the center’s director Col. Todd Brost said in the news release. The ultra-secret NSDC is both a joint and interagency center that is not part of U.S. STRATCOM. The center is expected to be staffed by about 200 personnel.
Vice President Pence, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Air Force Space Command Gen. John Raymond, head of the command, called the National Space Defense Center, the (NSDC) transitioned to 24/7 operations event a “significant milestone.”
The center started with months of analysis of what it would take to defend American satellites. Leaders used war games to determine staffing levels and to hone internal procedures. The center, which started as a concept in late 2015, arose out of increasing fear that America’s enemies would make satellites a wartime target.
The military’s satellites provide communications, navigation and missile warning for troops around the globe. In wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, satellites have given American ground troops an unprecedented advantage to track and target enemies. Intelligence satellites focus on foreign powers, with capabilities to – necessary to provide CDR JFCC SPACE the ability to plan and execute command and control of worldwide space forces. It is composed of five core divisions: Strategy Plans, Combat Plans, Combat Operations, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance and Space Surveillance It appears offensive forces would be needed conduct combat operations to protect the satellites.
On 13 September 1985, Maj. Wilbert D. “Doug” Pearson, flying the “Celestial Eagle” F-15A 76-0084 launched an ASM-135 ASAT about 200 miles (322 km) west of Vandenberg Air Force Base and destroyed the Solwind P78-1 satellite flying at an altitude of 345 miles (555 km). Prior to the launch the F-15 flying at Mach 1.22 executed a 3.8g zoom climb at an angle of 65 degrees. The ASM-135 ASAT was automatically launched at 38,100 ft while the F-15 was flying at Mach .934.[7] The 30 lb (13.6 kg) MHV collided with the 2,000 lb (907 kg) Solwind P78-1 satellite at closing velocity of 15,000 mph (24,140 km/h). Again it is logical to assume some type of space force, or armed satellites exist. Thanks to USAF
Nevada Man Who Survived UFO Abduction Says Aliens Asked Him About Jesus Christ
Henderson – A Nevada man who claims he was abducted by aliens from outer space last month says his extraterrestrial kidnappers attempted to convert him to Christianity while he was aboard their spacecraft.
Nigel Harshaw of Suffolk, England, who is in the United States on a temporary work visa, told Channel 13 Action News that on the evening of January 28, he was in his backyard assembling a grill when the incident occurred. “I just remember I was standing there with an Allen wrench in my hand and then in what felt like an instant, I was someplace else,” he recalled.
That “someplace else,” according to Nigel, was the inside of an unidentified flying object. The thirty-seven year-old IT consultant, who claims he spent nine hours aboard the spacecraft, says he was able to communicate with his alien captors. “Their language and speech patterns were unlike anything I’ve ever heard,” he said, adding, “Yet, somehow I was able to understand and interact with them.”
According to Harshaw’s account, the “human-like” beings did not appear hostile. “They asked me if I’d heard the good news. I told them, ‘I don’t know that I have.’ They said, ‘God loves you and He wants you to know and love Him. He offers you peace and joy and a fulfilled life.” Nigel, who is an atheist, said he was too frightened to say so at the time and instead did his best to appear open to their message.
“They told me that Jesus Christ visited their planet hundred thousand years ago proclaiming to be the Son of God,”
Harshaw recounted. He added that one of the beings presented him with an object that it described as a bible. “The last thing they told me before I was returned home was that Jesus is coming.”
Harshaw said despite being spared any physical harm, he was beside himself with terror throughout the entirety of the experience. “Honestly, I wish it had happened to somebody else,” he told Channel 13 Action News.
On January 30, just two days after the alleged event, two “very stern” officials from the U.S. Air Force showed up at Mr. Harshaw’s Black Mountain home and confiscated the “bible-like” object. “They didn’t ask any questions,” he recalled. “They made it very clear what they were there for, and once they had it, they simply left.”
To add insult to injury, Nigel Harshaw was notified by the U.S. Department of State on Sunday that his temporary work visa has been revoked. He has until the end of the week to return to the United Kingdom. Thanks to R. HOBBUS J.D. Investigative Journalist
Alien Versus Experimental Craft
Triangle photo by Bruce Cornet
Eric Hermanson writes, In my opinion, it helps to talk with insiders who have analyzed UFO/UAP craft. For example, there are other books besides Mills that work with the physics of UFO propulsion dynamics. I would also recommend Unconventional Flying Objects: A Scientific Analysis by Paul Hill, a former NASA engineer, which owes its existence to Dr. Bob Wood. To comment about the Bulgarian video, I would share the repeated general average of ET (non-human) vs. BP (Black Project) percentage, which is often put forward by BP guys to be about 30/70 or perhaps even 20/80. Though theory is interesting and fifth force valuable, the engineering details are my focus. If you are not familiar with the ET/BP ratio, let me share the awesome lecture by aerospace illustrator, Disclosure 2001 participant, and colleague of mine, Mark McCandlish, which only gets better and more revealing as he goes on:
Mark Xperimental
Based on eye-witness accounts and insider information, This video takes the audience through a series of revelations as to how remarkable breakthrough technology, may have been back-engineered from recovered or captured off-world vehicles, enabled aerospace corporations to create a special access only, secret space program and develop a break-away civilization with its own goals and agenda.
We are talking about Special Access Programs (SAP). From these we have unacknowledged and waived SAPs. These programs do not exist publicly, but they do indeed exist. They are better known as ‘deep black programs. Some of these vehicles are capable of flying at mach 17 and performing maneuvers that seem impossible.
McCandish talks about a flying wing at Lockheed Skunk Works that had a long boom extending out the back of the Triangle. At the end of that boom was a V-shaped fin or tail that could be moved like the tail feathers of a bird in order to change flight. Now this information was revealed at MUFON LA, and released by UPARS LA in 2017, 20 years after this craft flew over me as I was standing on South Searsville Rd. in Orange County, NY. This Triangle lost out in competition with the Northrop B2 contract, so what is it doing flying low over Orange County at night, and where was it parked? With all the thousands of Black Triangle sightings between 1997 and 2004, clearly this craft was not mothballed.
So Mark McCandish seems to have described what Lynch and I videotaped. Thanks to Bruce Cornet
NASA Climate Modeling Suggests Venus May Have Been Habitable
Observations suggest Venus may have had water oceans in its distant past. A land-ocean pattern like that above was used in a climate model to show how storm clouds could have shielded ancient Venus from strong sunlight and made the planet habitable.
Credits: NASA Venus
Venus may have had a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures for up to 2 billion years of its early history, according to computer modeling of the planet’s ancient climate by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The findings, published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, were obtained with a model similar to the type used to predict future climate change on Earth.
“Many of the same tools we use to model climate change on Earth can be adapted to study climates on other planets, both past and present,” said Michael Way, a researcher at GISS. Venus today has a crushing carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth’s. There is almost no water vapor. Temperatures reach 864 degrees Fahrenheit at its surface.
Scientists long have theorized that Venus formed out of ingredients similar to Earth’s, but followed a different evolutionary path. Venus is closer to the sun than Earth and receives far more sunlight. As a result, the planet’s early ocean evaporated, with no water left on the surface, carbon dioxide built up in the atmosphere, leading to a so-called runaway greenhouse effect that created present conditions.
The research was done as part of NASA’s Planetary Science Astrobiology program through the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) program , which will try to detect possible habitable planets and characterize their atmospheres.
Excellent Venus Adventure
Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure is the third thrilling book in realist, and ufologist, Dr. Raymond A. Keller’s internationally acclaimed and award-winning Venus Rising series. Some of the interesting- and real individuals- you’ll meet in this book of astounding science include: A Canadian defense minister Paul Shishis Hellyer who “spilled the beans” about Venusians and other aliens living and working among us, scientists from around the world engineering new developments to explore and understand various outer space phenomena like magnetic reconnection, traveling faster than the speed of light, and the requisites for intelligent life on other planets.
“Cosmic Ray” traversing Dimension X with the Queen of Outer Space, Dolores Barrios.. Krsanna Durant of TimeStar reveals startling new revelations that will shake the Ufology universe. A Nevada road construction foreman at Mormon Mesa, Nevada, who encounters a female saucer pilot. Sporting a beret and looking quite the revolutionary, her name is Aura Rhanes and she is from the Venusian space base Clarion on the far side of the Moon. An Aerojet missile contractor who flew in a remote controlled flying saucer from White Sands, New Mexico, to New York City and back in 30 minutes. Never-before-seen photos taken by the contractor of Air Force personnel attached to him while working on the development of the top secret Falcon missile’s dual radar and heat-seeking targeting systems are included. Countless others also appear in the well-documented pages.
Dan Johnson writes, “Water, water, surround yourself with water. Water is why Ets come to this earth. It is for water.” I listened to the two hour interviews on the Jeff Rense radio program with Dr. Raymond Keller, entitled, “From Venus with Love. Ray Keller’s speaks of missing some 40 gallons of water at Giant Rock, which he and others think were taken by Ets for use for whatever endeavor. Ets use this same plasmatic medium, water, to power their space vehicles. The last statement is pure speculation on my part but it makes a lot of sense. Maybe the Ets came to Giant Rock to power their ships, among other things.
Not all Ets have a supportive agenda. (My way of saying that there are some bad Ets). Water can be gleaned in several ways. It can be gotten from oceans, lakes or rivers for example or it can be gotten from humans, taken or otherwise. For example, we humans are made up of some 75% water, and BTW, so is the earth. Our sci-fi pictures and movies depict vampires sucking the blood of humans, which is made up of some 75% water and also has a plasma content as its base. Some say that science fiction is 95% truth. Maybe this is why there have been so many abductions. What better way to get water than taking something through abduction that has 75% water in it. What a neat little package we humans make.
China’s on Track to Contain the World’s Largest Christian Population
Thanks to a surge in underground house churches and state-sanction places of worship, according to the Council of Foreign Relations China’s Christian population is expanding rapidly.. The more China tries to stop the growth the faster it expands.
In a background document titled “Christianity in China,” the CFR estimates of the number of Protestants at anywhere from 58 million to 115 million and higher — though fewer than 30 million attend officially registered churches.
The CFR reported underground house churches exist parallel to state-sanctioned Christian churches, operating outside of the guidelines of the government, and their regulation by party authorities is largely determined by local leaders. According to the background report, the number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 percent annually since 1979, putting China on track to have the world’s largest population of Christians by 2030. Estimates of the Catholic faithful in China, meanwhile, range between 10 to 12 million — despite the fact that the Holy See and Beijing haven’t had formal diplomatic ties since 1951. According to the CFR, the two sides now are reportedly close to finalizing a deal on the appointment of Catholic bishops. According to the CFR, social scientists are linking the rise in Christianity with that of a spiritual vacuum following decades of unbridled economic growth in China. And with a richer and better educated society and a renewed interest in religion, the Chinese Community Party philosophy loses its public traction, the CFR noted.
Protestantism “appeals to Chinese traditions of ritual and community are drawn to the religion’s emphasis on egalitarianism and spiritual community within the church. It is also possible that more Chinese may choose Christianity over other faiths, such as Tibetan Buddhism, Islam or Falun Gong, because Christianity is more tolerated and is potentially a safer option in China. Still, Christians have faced growing repression in recent years — and China has ranked 10th as a country where it’s most difficult and dangerous to practice Christianity, according to Open Doors, a non-profit that tracks the persecution of Christians worldwide.
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Filer’s Files #11 – 2018 Trump’s Space Force - PART II
Filer’s Files #11 – 2018 Trump’s Space Force - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Arizona Light
This picture was taken out West, a few years ago by a friend of mine. It clearly shows a disc shaped object high above the trees taken last summer.
It was not seen directly, but after the photo was observed more closely a few day later.
The inset photo shows the object a little closer and one can make out more details of the craft. Love and Light, Dan Johnson
California Object
Valencia— My ex husband saw these objects and our son sent them to me.
They were taken on March 12, 2018,
He said, “They were “zipping around really fast“.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Colorado Mutilation
My wife and I were driving down US Hwy 285, Alamosa, CO 81101, passed Rio Grande Ranch on the right side of road.
Across fence laid several dead, mutilated cattle with no faces and odd looking. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Triangle
Spring Hill — Walking the dogs with my girlfriend we noticed an unusual light pattern in the northern sky heading over SR 50 and Mariner Boulevard area on March 6, 2018. It took me a few seconds to realize I was looking at something abnormal as no normal aviation lights were observed. I hold a certification in airplane mechanics and noticed this crafts light pattern was unusual. I was unable to see a defined outline of the craft, but several pale white lights appeared on the underside of the craft in the shape of a triangle. See attached sketch. It flew faster than normal air traffic. and flew up into cloud cover. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Maryland Lights
Manchester— This sighting occurred from around 11:57 to 12 Midnight. I was sitting by my deck door on March 10, 2018, and noticed a light through the trees. I saw a flying object casting a bright light with smaller blinking lights around it. I knew it wasn’t an ordinary plane as it made no sounds. I heard a quiet hum/buzz as it flew over at a couple hundred feet. It continued flying in a straight line, coming from the NW to SE, I noticed two white lights to either side of it that weren’t blinking, one red light on its front, and one white light on its back/bottom, and both the red and white light were alternating blinks. I could see the outline of it, and it was definitely a triangular shape. After researching a little the only thing I found is a TR-3B or a B-2. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Nebraska Disk
Curtis — I was taking my normal walk for my anxiety on a dirt road at night on my school’s campus on March 7, 2018. I live in a very small town, with very little light pollution. This makes the stars in the sky very visible, so I noticed a large chunk of it was solid black. I stared at the slowly moving black mass was like a disc. The light from the building I was nearby reflected off the slowly spinning object. It felt almost predatory and I felt I had to get out of there and head indoors. My heart was racing as I kept looking up but I never saw it again. The sketch is a rough outline of what I saw.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Black Triangle
Gloucester County — I heard a loud whoosh and looked up on January 19, 2018, as it flew right over my head. The craft had no wings, no lights, no markings, as the large white craft passed over me. I could draw it. It went straight past the house across from me at 9;55 pm. I was amazed as I only heard the displacement of air sound, “whoosh.”. I saw it and as much as I pretty much believe Earth probably had visitors from someplace else..There’s no way in hell it was ours! It was like the end of a Comcast channel control with the rounded edges and rectangular shape, but this got a little slimmer towards the front. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Egg Harbor Township — This was something I have never seen before. It moved, very slowly on March 14, 2018, with no sound and a force field around it.. It was a black triangle, with a circular field around it that I observed for 10 to 15 minutes. It was moving so slow, and straight, ascending at the same time. I live on the 3rd floor of a apartment complex and live near Pomona Air Force Base. I see all different kinds of military and commercial aircraft all day long. Honestly, it could have a been military craft. I’m not sure. What was so odd was how slow it moved, and the force field around the craft. It vanished into thin air. Thanks to MUFON CMS
North Carolina Triangle
Broadway— I saw this object in the sky and decided to film it with my Canon on March 15, 2018. The sky was clear while I was filming, at 1:03 PM. In the video you can see the object moving right to left.
In the video you can see a jet’s chemtrail flying above this object in a couple of shots. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Texas Object
Bangs — Going to check my pasture; and looked up and noticed this object in the sky on March 7, 2018.
I thought it was a meteorite, however it didn’t move and disappeared/de-materialized shortly after observation (45-60 seconds).
Have photos. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Utah Object
I took a picture of the clouds that were moving weirdly.
Then this shape opted out of the clouds on
March 2, 2018. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Washington Lights
Everett— Might just be a reflection of my fence lights off my camera on March 1, 2018, or maybe UFOs.
They know how to be elusive and blend in.
Interestingly the Sea lions stopped making noise. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Australia Object
My husband saw strange lights in the sky on March 3, 2018, that changed color and I videotaped them.
On the videos there was a bell shaped object with 3 lights that looked a lot closer. Before hand and after there were a few lights that whizzed past. It was a very dark night and only taped it on my iPhone. We are not sure what we taped but it was something very different.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Brazil Object
Rio de Janeiro— During my vacation last November 30, 2017, I took this photo.
Now 4 months later I realize that this hovering object at the top of the photo was caught by my mobile.
I was descending the sugar loaf hill.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Object
Maple Ridge, B.C. — It was early Saturday morning March 10, 2018, around 5:40am I went out on my back porch. I looked over towards the mountains and saw this bright white light flying towards me from the west. I watched it for a few seconds and realized that this was the same light I saw the night before around 10pm.
I took ten pics as it flew over my neighbor’s house. There was six or seven planes and then I saw this silent light to the west. It was flying north and then just blinked out. It was not a conventional aircraft.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Columbia Base
Ubaté— I’m a writer and in 2005, during the preparation of my last book about antediluvian culture, I was Googling in the valley of Ubate.
I was astounded to discover in an isolated place what appears to be a large UFO base.
In the same place I could also observe from the air giant sarcophagi (stone coffins). I decided to investigate the matter further, so I drove towards the place, but I was unable to get there. The roads were interrupted, so I decided to quit the search.
A few days later a very strange report was published in the EL TIEMPO newspaper showing the photograph of a UFO that could be clearly seen flying very near the area in which I had observed the supposedly UFO base.
Some years passed by, but I finally decided to contact MUFON and show the photographs that I include with this report.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Mexico Orbs
Cancun— Never saw these objects in real time when I took the photo on March 3, 2018.
Only after looking at my sunrise shot did I notice these lights under the cloud.
Also notice 45 shaft of vapor from object.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Puerto Rico Sphere
Boqueron — More UFO / OUFO Images from Daniel Matos Velez
Received by Joshua P. Warren March, 2018
Due to hurricane Maria, FEMA workmen are living next to the beach in Boqueron, Puerto Rico.
In early March, 2018, there was a mass sighting of a craft over the water. One engineer snapped this video of a UFO above the helicopter.
In less than a second, a silvery probe can be seen flying past the helicopter.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK/England Lights
Stonehenge — Been a true believer, I opened my mind with ecstasy and symbolically laid myself down in front of the stones trying to concentrate waves of emotion through myself, and through the stones focused upward. I almost had to complete a ritual for the revelation and made the pilgrimage to Stonhenge on June 21, 2015.
I had a sudden urge to photograph the stones, now it was 1.20am the morning of the solstice in one of the most ancient and holy sites in Britain, I took out my phone and started snapping, at first standing up with no flash and eventually laying on my belly. It was soon clear the spotlights installed for the event lighting the stones was absorbing my camera flash and in fact my desired picture would not be possible, but I didn’t stop.
I don’t know if they removed me briefly physically or just connected with my mind but I know I called them, they spoke to me and let me capture the moment on film. Snip Thanks to MUFON CMS
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20-03-2018
Fact Check: Did Stephen Hawking Become A Catholic After A Blessing From Pope Francis?
Fact Check: Did Stephen Hawking Become A Catholic After A Blessing From Pope Francis?
According to a controversial Facebook post, in a time-honored sacred ritual, Professor Hawking became a Catholic just before passing away.
But did Stephen Hawking really turn to Christianity before his death?
The world-renowned astrophysicist passed away at the age of 76, leaving behind a great scientific legacy. And when it came down to religion and God, Hawking wasn’t really someone who was religiously motivated, nor did he believe in the existence in god as he claimed, on numerous occasions, how God had no role in creating the universe.”
Now, as news about Hawking’s death has quickly spread among all social networks and news agencies, posts about Stephen Hawking have become very popular, after all, he was one of the most popular scientists of the 21st century.
On 14 March 2018, a Facebook Post published by a Page called „Catholics Online“ posted an image of Professor Stephen Hawking and Pope Francis with a caption reading: Before he died, ‘Stip’h ‘Hawkins’ (apparently the author didn’t even manage to spell Hawking’s name accurately) who did not believe in God requested to visit the Vatican. “Now l believe” was the only statement he made after the Holy Father blessed him.
Before he died, Stiph Hawkins who did not believe in God requested to visit the Vatican. "Now l believe" was the only statement he made after the Holy Father blessed him.
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However, we all know that Professor Hawking was an atheist, and saw no place for God in the universe.
Hawking often discussed the origins of the universe and his views about a Creator suggesting that the universe had no need for such a divine being.
As the Washington Post documented after his death, Hawking told the Guardian in 2011 that he did not believe in an afterlife or heaven:
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Furthermore, in his Book “The Grand Design,” which was co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says according to a new series of theories, it is superfluous to think of a creator of the universe.
“The universe began with the Big Bang, which simply followed the inevitable law of physics,” Hawking wrote. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.”
“The universe didn’t need a God to begin; it was quite capable of launching its existence on its own,” said Hawking explained in his book, The Grand Design.
In today’s world, where new theories emerge reapply, physicists are constantly adapting new ideologies and theories to new discoveries in their respective fields.
In 2010, he told ABC News: “One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but science makes God unnecessary.”
But despite the fact that Hawking was an atheist, he was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, appointedto it by Pope Paul VI in 1968.
As noted in an article written by the Catholic Herald, the academy said he told four popes he wanted to ‘advance the relationship between Faith and Scientific Reason’.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which Pope Pius IX established in 1847, tweeted, “We are deeply saddened about the passing of our remarkable Academician Stephen #Hawking who was so faithful to our Academy.”
“He told the 4 Popes he met that he wanted to advance the relationship between Faith and Scientific Reason. We pray the Lord to welcome him in his Glory,” @CasinaPioIV, the academy, tweeted March 14.
It is precisely there, from where the Facebook Page Catholics Online created their little contribution to Fake News.
They used an image of Pope Francis and Stephen Hawking when he delivered his presentation on “The Origin of the Universe” at the academy’s plenary session on science and sustainability in 2016.
But despite the fact that Professor Hawking did not believe in God, he was greatly appreciated and respected in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the Catholic Church in General.
Curiously, Vatican astronomer Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, who has studied both physics and philosophy, told Catholic News Service in 2010 that “the ‘god’ that Stephen Hawking doesn’t believe in is one I don’t believe in either.”
“God is not just another force in the universe, alongside gravity or electricity,” he added. “God is the reason why existence itself exists. God is the reason why space and time and the laws of nature can be present for the forces to operate that Stephen Hawking is talking about.”
The Atomic Theory Was Developed 2,600 Years Ago By An Ancient Hindu Sage
The Atomic Theory Was Developed 2,600 Years Ago By An Ancient Hindu Sage
Is history as we know wrong? Despite the fact that John Dalton, an English Chemist, and physicist is credited with developing the atom theory, the truth may be more surprising than you could imagine.
If we take a look at historic records, some 2,600 years before Dalton, an ancient Hindu sage, and philosopher called Kashyap, developed it.
Born in 600 BC, near Dwarka, Kashyap is the actual father of the Atomic theory.
People called him ‘Kanad,’ as ‘Kan’ which in ancient Sanskrit is translated to ‘the smallest particle’ after he was seen gathering grains from the street while on a pilgrimage to Prayag.
Kashyap was fascinated by small particles and began collecting them.
When asked why he was accumulating them he responded that while individual grains might appear as useless or worthless, a collection of hundreds of grains could make someone’s daily meal. He explained how a selection of meals could feed a family and ultimately all of humankind, demonstrating how the smallest grains mattered more than anyone could imagine.
Kashyap was fascinated with the world around him and started writing down his views on everything that surrounded him, and eventually conceptualized the idea of ‘the smallest particle’ that constitutes everything we see and don’t see.
Kashyap passed his knowledge onto others, and people then started referring to him as ‘Acharya,’ the teacher.
Eventually, he became known by the name of Acharya Kanad or ‘the teacher of small particles.’
“Every object of creation is made of atoms which in turn connect with each other to form molecules,” –Kanad.
The more you read about Kanad, the more fascinated you will become with his life and work.
The story behind how he imagined the idea of a particle that could not be divided any further is remarkably compelling.
One day, he was walking with food in his hand, and started breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces until he realized he could not break down the food any further because it was too small It was then when Acharya Kanada described the ‘invisible matter as Paramnu or Anu which translated means ‘atom.’
Acharya Kanad explained how invisible matter could not be sensed through any human organ, nor can it be seen by the naked eye.
Acharya Kanadstated that an inherent urge made one Anu (atom) combine with another.
Acharya Kanad further explained that when two Anu which belonged to the same ‘class’ of substance were combined, a dwinuka or binary molecule was created.
The Ancient Hindu Saga theorized that different mixtures of Anu produced very different types of substances.
It was Kanad who also put forward the idea that anu (atoms) could be combined in several different ways which would produce chemical changes in the presence of other factors like heat.
To provide a more uncomplicated explanation, Kanad gave the blackening of earthen pot and ripening of fruit as an example.
Kanad was also the founder of the Vaisheshika School of philosophy, a place where he shared his ideas, knowledge and explained his theories about atoms, the nature of the cosmos, and all that surrounds us, both visible and invisible.
He also wrote a book titled “Vaisheshik Darshan” where he presented all of his research.
In regards to Kanad, his ideas, theories and discoveries, A.L. Basham, a veteran Australian Indologist asserted that Kanad’s teachings “were brilliant, imaginative explanations of the physical structure of the world, and in large measure, agreed with the findings of modern physics.”
However, Acharya Kanad wasn’t the only source of superior knowledge from ancient India.
According to observations by one of the most prominent Indian scientists, certain ‘slokas’ aka verses of the holy Vedas texts make mention of several undiscovered natural phenomena that were discovered by Westerners many centuries later.
Madhavan Nair stressed that the Vedas, or also known as the four sacred texts of one of the oldest missing Vedic religion, described the presence of water on the moon, the gravitational force, and other scientific phenomena there were not supposed to be known of until centuries later.
The Vedas hold an incredible wealth of information in the field of space and atomic energy.
We were on the right track until the year 600 BC, before the invasions said 71-year-old Padma Vibhushan awardee who believes the Vedas are a treasure trove of knowledge, comprising information on metallurgy, algebra, astronomy, math, architecture, and astrology among other things.
According to the former head of the Indian space agency, the Chandrayaan 1 satellite, orbited around the moon thanks to an equation expressed thousands of years ago by Aryabhata.
Astronomers could tell that the 1,300-foot-long (400 meters) 'Oumuamua wasn't from around here based on its hyperbolic orbit, which showed that the object wasn't gravitationally bound to the sun. Initially, scientists thought the body was probably a comet. But 'Oumuamua displayed no cometary activity — no long tail, no cloud-like "coma" around its core — even after getting relatively close to the sun, so it was soon reclassified as an asteroid.
"It's really odd that the first object we would see from outside our system would be an asteroid, because a comet would be a lot easier to spot, and the solar system ejects many more comets than asteroids," study lead author Alan Jackson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Planetary Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said in a statement.
But 'Oumuamua probably didn't come from a system like our own, according to the new study. Jackson and his colleagues performed computer-modeling work, which indicated that systems with two close-orbiting stars boot out asteroids much more efficiently than one-star systems do.
And there are a lot of these binary systems out there; previous research has suggested that more than half of all Milky Way stars have close stellar companions.
Nobody knows for sure where 'Oumuamua came from or how long it's been voyaging through deep space. But the odds are good that it was born into a binary system that harbors at least one big, hot star, according to the new study. That's because such systems are likely to have predominately rocky (as opposed to icy) bodies orbiting relatively close in, in the prime ejection zone.
And 'Oumuamua was likely booted out during its natal system's planet-formation period, however long ago that may have been, Jackson and his team said.
'Oumuamua made its closest approach to Earth — about 15 million miles (24 million kilometers) — on Oct. 14. The object is now barreling toward the outer solar system and has been too distant and faint to study even with large telescopes since mid-December, NASA officials have said. But astronomers gathered a slew of data about 'Oumuamua while they could, and they will doubtless be mining this information for a long time to come.
"The same way we use comets to better understand planet formation in our own solar system, maybe this curious object can tell us more about how planets form in other systems," Jackson said.
Few things compare to the dazzling light show performed by nature’s northern and southern lights — but they’re not alone. It was only in the past few years that a new type of aurora was found. Thanks to the watchful eye of citizen scientists and photographers, we can now add to programme an exquisite short-lived shimmering purple ribbon of plasma called Steve. Meanwhile, scientists have had time to carefully study the phenomenon in an attempt to learn what makes it tick.
A band of dedicated Canadian aurora chasers was among the first who took pictures of Steve. The aurora feature was first posted on the Facebook group Alberta Aurora Chasers in 2016 and, initially, most thought they were looking at a ‘proton arc’ — another rare type of aurora, which isn’t caused by electrons hitting Earth’s magnetic field but by more massive protons following a solar flare.
Eric Donovan from the University of Calgary was one of the first scientists who probed Steve, a 25 to 30 kilometer (15 to 18 miles) wide arc that aligns east-west and can extend over hundreds of miles. He recognized that this wasn’t a proton arc for a number of reasons, including the fact that a proton aurora is hardly visible.
Meet Steve. Image: Dave Markel Photography.
Donovan called some colleagues, and soon enough people like Elizabeth MacDonald, a space physicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, sent ESA’s Swarm magnetic field mission through Steve. Swarm is a constellation of satellites tasked with studying Earth’s magnetic field. The instruments recorded accelerated and heated charged particles coming from the sun, which physicists found that they interact with a particular part of the Earth’s magnetic field in the ionosphere. So, rather than a proton arc, Macdonald and colleagues associate Steve with a so-called “subauroral ion drift,” they wrote in a new paper published in Science Advances on Wednesday. This occurs 60 degrees above the equator, where the global electric and magnetic fields align, making ions and electrons fly rapidly from east to west.
These rather rare auroras last only an hour and must coincide with space weather, specifically an ejection of charged particles from the sun. And instead of red, green, or yellow auroras shaped in mesmerizing curtains, Steve forms a ribbon across the sky that looks purplish in color. Sometimes, as some lucky photographers found, Steve also features small green picket fence-like arcs.
Most recently, Steve has been sighted in Scotland, from near Oban in Argyll and Gairloch in Wester Ross. Other places where Steve has been spotted so far include the UK, Canada, Alaska, northern US states, and New Zealand.
Credit: Catalin Tapardel, Alberta Aurora Chasers.
To legitimize Steve in academia, the researchers also found a clever backronym for Steve: Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. Originally, the people who first discovered the new aurora called it Steve in honor of the children’s movie Over the Hedge, in which a character arbitrarily conjures up the name Steve to describe an object he’s not sure about.
NASA is now calling on citizen scientists and photographers to help research Steve by reporting any sightings to the Aurorasaurus project. If you live in the right latitude, this might be your chance to make a huge contribution to science.
“Because this is a new way of observing a phenomenon linked to space, it provides a new way to study it,” Vassilis Angelopoulos, a space physicist at UCLA not involved in the study, told National Geographic. “Citizen scientists can also be involved in triangulating them and determining their altitudes."
As the name implies, a supervolcano is an extremely large volcano, capable of ejecting over 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles) of deposits. There are six known supervolcanoes and twelve known super-eruptions.
Graphic scale of known volcanic and supervolcanic eruptions. Image in public domain.
If we want to see what makes a supervolcano, we need to first understand what a volcano is — and what makes it ‘super’.
The Earth’s internal structure is layered in three spherical shells: an outer solid crust(everything we see and walk on), a viscous mantle, an outer core that is much less viscous than the mantle (often considered liquid), and a solid inner core. A volcano is a rupture in the crust that allows material from the asthenosphere to reach the surface in the form of lava, volcanic ash, and gases.
You can think of volcanoes as vents through which molten rock escapes to the surface.
Most volcanoes appear because the Earth’s crust is fractured into rigid plates called tectonic plates. These plates “float” on a hotter, softer layer in its mantle. When pressure from gases within the molten rock becomes too great, an eruption occurs, but in order for this to happen, a volcano must first gather magma in a magma chamber.
A magma chamber is like a cauldron of molten rock, put under great pressure, that gradually fractures the other rocks around it, as it tries to reach the surface in order to release its pressure. These magma chambers lie deep inside the earth, generally at around 1-10 km deep.
A depiction of the Yellowstone magma chamber. Yellowstone is a known supervolcano. Image via NPS.
When an eruption takes place and material is ejected from the magma chambers, they sometimes form features called calderas: large circular or oval depressions, more than 1 km (0.6 miles) in diameter. Calderas appear because the magma was supporting the weight above it, and when the magma is ejected through the volcano, the whole thing can collapse under its own weight. For this reason, calderas can somewhat resemble craters.
But sometimes, the magma can’t push through to the surface, so it gathers in the magma chamber, building up the pressure. As the magma pool gets bigger and bigger, the chamber grows, reaching ungodly pressures — and when it does it erupt, it’s an enormous eruption; you could say, a super-eruption.
That’s right: supervolcanoes form when they gather enough magma and pressure for a gargantuan explosion. In more formal terms, geologists classify supervolcanoes as having a “VEI” of 8. The Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions, devised by researchers from the United States Geological Survey. The largest possible VEI magnitude is 8 — so, in other words, a supervolcano is the largest possible volcano.
VEI and ejecta volume correlation — note that the VEI is a logarithmic scale, meaning that each degree of magnitude is ten times larger than the previous one. Tephra is the material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition or fragment size.
2. Studying volcanoes
Geologists are even able to study even extremely old eruptions, from tens of millions of years ago. Supervolcano eruptions send ejecta all across the world and release tremendous quantities of deposits — a thick layer around the volcano which thins out the farther away from the volcano it spreads. These deposits can be dated and analyzed physically and chemically, revealing a lot of information about the initial eruption.
3. What are the supervolcanoes?
Thankfully, there aren’t that many supervolcanoes on Earth. It’s not entirely clear just how many super-eruptions there have been in Earth’s history (we’ll use that term even though it’s not quite proper). Some research has found evidence of 60 super-eruptions, while other studies report 47 such events, with the most recent one being the Oruanui eruption of New Zealand’s Taupo Volcano, 26,500 years ago. The Oruanui eruption was a highly unusual one, with a complex interplay of ejection and pyroclastic flows, covering New Zealand’s North Island with ignimbrite (a type of hardened tuff) up to 200 meters (660 ft) deep. The same volcanic area caused two other super-eruptions, 340,000 and 1,080,000 years ago respectively.
Another famous eruption is Lake Toba, which occurred some 74,000 years ago (it’s rather unusual to have two super eruptions in such quick geological succession). The eruption of Toba led to a volcanic winter (a drop in global temperatures caused by volcanic ash and droplets of sulfuric acid and water which obscure the Sun) with a worldwide decrease in temperature between 3 to 5 °C (5.4 to 9.0 °F), and up to 15 °C (27 °F) in higher latitudes. This had catastrophic consequences for the planet’s wildlife — including early humans. It killed most of the humans living at the time, creating a population bottleneck in central east Africa and India, which affects the genetic makeup of the human worldwide population to this day.
An incomplete map of supervolcanoes around the world. Red is VEI 8 and orange is VEI 7.
However, without a doubt, the most famous supervolcano is Yellowstone.
4. The Yellowstone supervolcano
Unlike most volcanoes, which emerge at the boundary of tectonic plates, Yellowstone (in Idaho, US) is a hotspot. Hotspots are pockets of unusually hot magma. It is thought that these hotspots are fed by the underlying mantle. Intriguingly, their position is not influenced by plate tectonics — as the plates move, the hotspot stays in the same place, because it lies beneath the crust. This can create a so-called hotspot trail, which leads to the illusion that the hotspot is moving — it is, in fact, the surface of the Earth that is moving above the hotspot. There is a lot of scientific debate around the nature and development of hotspots, but let’s get back to Yellowstone, shall we?
Remember how we said hotspots can leave a trail behind them? That’s exactly what the Yellowstone hotspot did. So it has not one, but several calderas (including the Island Park Caldera, the Henry’s Fork Caldera, and the Bruneau-Jarbidge caldera). The current hotspot lies beneath the Yellowstone Caldera.
The calderas of Yellowstone.
Image credits: NPS.
The largest eruption at Yellowstone took place 2.1 million years ago and had a volume of 2,450 cubic kilometers. However, it had several smaller eruptions. Volcanism at Yellowstone seems to happen periodically — there was an eruption 1.3 million years ago, and another one approximately 630,000 years ago. Much smaller eruptions (not super-eruptions) have happened as early as 2,270 years ago.
5. What would happen if Yellowstone were to erupt
A super-eruption of Yellowstone would have catastrophic consequences. The eruption itself (the local lava and ejected rocks) would pale in comparison to what would happen on a wider scale. First, it could bury states like Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado in three feet of volcanic ash, killing plants, animals, and insects alike. Electrical systems would be destroyed, houses would be crushed, and much of the US would be gravely damaged.
But perhaps even worse, the ash would spread like a cover around the world, shrouding the Earth and reflecting sunlight back, creating a volcanic winter. Temperatures could drop by several degrees, crops would fail, and famine will likely spread all around the world. This situation would last for several years, before finally returning to normal.
Thankfully, that’s extremely unlikely to happen.
A Yellowstone eruption would be a catastrophic scenario. Thankfully, that’s not likely to happen.
Image credits: NPS.
6. Should we worry?
Not really. Studies have found that super-eruptions are extremely rare — on the basis of volcanic activity during the past 13.5 million years — there’s a 1% chance of an eruption of this scale in the next 460–7,200 years. Statistically, there are about 1.4 supervolcano eruptions every million years, so that would mean there is at least a 75% probability of a VEI 8 eruption in this timeframe.
La Garita Caldera is a large volcanic caldera in the San Juan volcanic field. It took place around 28 million years ago and it is among the largest known volcanic eruptions in our planet’s history.
Image via Wikipedia.
So while these eruptions can be extremely damaging, they’re so rare that the time-averaged impact really isn’t that big. However, here’s the thing: VEI 7 eruptions occur much more frequently (10-100 times), so that means that on average, we should be more worried about these VEI 7 eruptions than the supervolcano eruptions.
7. The year without summer
Mount Tambora had a VEI 7 eruption in 1815, which resulted in 1816 being called ‘The Year without Summer’
Supervolcanoes are some of the most impressive features on our planet, capable of ungodly eruptions which would send the entire planet into disarray. But as it so often happens, it’s not the big sword that’s threatening, but the thousand smaller cuts.
Wait a minute — I thought you said VEI 8 was the maximum possible eruption?!
Well, yes, but scientists found evidence of an eruption with a mass of >1016 kg and a magnitude of 9.2. So while VEI 8 is technically the largest classification, the Fish Canyon Tuff eruption was more than 10 times larger what would be necessary to classify as a supervolcano.
What is Kapustin Yar? There are rumors of secret underground facilities by Kapustin Yar, where UFOs and “aliens” are kept by the Russian government.
Well...after the WWII, Soviet missile development program gave impetus to the creation of the Kapustin Yar test range.
The 1946 decree, officially establishing the rocket industry in the country, directed the Ministry of Armed Forces to propose the location for the Central Test Range for all jet-propelled weapons. The major factors which favored Kapustin Yar over other locations were the access by railroad, relative proximity to industrial infrastructure of the city of Stalingrad (Volgograd) on the Volga River and land availability for the construction of the range. The future range designated the 4th State Central Range (4th GTsP) centered is located at 48.4 degrees Northern latitude and 56.5 degrees Eastern longitude.
Video shows Navy jet’s encounter with a UFO, group says
Video shows Navy jet’s encounter with a UFO, group says
Washington (CNN)A new purported military video of an unidentified aircraft has been made public, following the Pentagon's acknowledgment last year that it had shelved an initiative devoted to identifying unknown objects in aerospace.
(Source: YouTube/ To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science)
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science -- an organization leading on the issue that includes a former head of the now-defunct Pentagon program and was co-founded by former Blink182 musician Tom DeLonge -- released the video titled "GO FAST" on Friday.
The group said it is Defense Department footage from an F/A-18 Super Hornet's video of the "high-speed flight of an unidentified aircraft."
The Pentagon declined to comment about the footage to CNN, and To The Stars Academy said multiple government organizations reviewed the video for release, and that anyone could obtain the video using a Freedom of Information Act request.
The publication of the purported military footage follows revelations last year from The New York Times and Politico about the past Pentagon effort on unidentified aerial phenomena and the publication of two videos showing Navy pilots' encounters with unidentified objects.
Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program who now works at To The Stars Academy, told CNN on Monday that the newly released video provides further evidence of what he said is likely a much larger cache of Pentagon materials about unidentified aerial phenomena and underscored the need for a public conversation around the issue.
"These are just three videos now that have come out that everybody's looking at," Elizondo said. "But there is far more compelling evidence that I was privy to that -- you know, I think you're looking at the tip of the iceberg."
Elizondo said the organization obtained the video through "reporting channels," but declined to get into detail about the group's "sources and methods." He said they followed the "proper process" to get the video and that "the Department of Defense approved the release."
In an acknowledgment of the program last year, the Pentagon said the initiative ended in 2012, and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Times its funding came from "black money" -- meaning appropriations for covert programs.
"It was determined that there were other, higher priority issues that merited funding, and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change," Pentagon spokesman Tom Crosson told CNN at the time.
CNN Safety Analyst David Soucie, who has worked in civilian aviation agencies, said he was taken aback in particular by the lack of heat indicated in the video by the object and bemoaned the project's reported ending.
"There is literally no explanation for this in my mind," Soucie said.
On Monday, Elizondo also noted "eerie similarities" between the new video and the ones released last year, including the location in US airspace, the presence of US Navy pilots, the "Tic Tac" shape of the object and other signatures he said the videos shared in common.
Elizondo said he did not believe the object was necessarily "a little green space alien," but that they couldn't rule anything out, and that even if the object is simply a foreign aircraft, that alone should be alarming.
"It could be anything, so I wouldn't rule anything out, and that's why I think we need to look at it," Elizondo said. "I mean it could be Russian. It could be Chinese. It could be little green men from Mars. We don't know what the hell it is."
Aliens have been depicted countless times in cinema, from Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon (1902) to James Cameron's Avatar (2009). But despite the advancements in special-effects technology over the past century, most aliens we see on screen still share a lot of similarities—mainly, they look, move, and interact with the world like humans do. Vox explains how the classic alien look came to be in their new video below.
When you picture an alien, you may imagine a being with reptilian skin or big, black eyes, but the basic components of a human body—two arms, two legs, and a head with a face—are likely all there. In reality, finding an intelligent creature that evolved all those same features on a planet millions of light-years away would be an extraordinary coincidence. If alien life does exist, it may not look like anything we've ever seen on Earth.
But when it comes to science fiction, accuracy isn't always the goal. Creating an alien character humans can relate to may take priority. Or, the alien's design may need to work as a suit that can be worn by human performers. The result is a version of extraterrestrial life that looks alien— but not too alien—to movie audiences.
So if aliens probably won't have four limbs, two eyes, and a mouth, what would they look like if we ever met them person? These experts have some theories.
YouTube Kids, the supposedly child-friendly version of YouTube that’s been shown to often play host to troves of slop content and disturbingvideos, apparently was showing videos from British conspiracy theorist David Icke, a guy who believes reptilian aliens secretly control the world and are responsible for the Holocaust.
According to a Saturday report in Business Insider, searching for the term “UFO” on YouTube kids turned up a video purporting “to show a UFO shooting at a chemtrail.” The suggested followups for that video featured a number of Icke’s clips, including a nearly five-hour lecture on how aliens built the pyramids and secretly run the planet through a ruling class extraterrestrial-human hybrids. The video also delves into a number of other conspiracy theories, including claims Freemasons indulge in human sacrifice and President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by his own government.
According to Business Insider, “Two other conspiracy theory videos by Icke appeared in the related videos, meaning it was easy for children to quickly go from watching relatively innocent videos about toys to conspiracy content.
Searching for the term “moon landing” also resulted in a number of conspiratorial videos emerging, including one making the claim that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider had opened a portal to another world that an unfortunate employee then vanished in. While YouTube removed 25 videos specifically flagged by Business Insider, the site reported conspiracy content remains widely available on YouTube Kids and watching some of the videos resulted in others showing up in the app’s recommended video queue.
While the regular version of YouTube has its own problems with propaganda and disinformation (some of which, like videos blasting mass shooting survivors as “crisis actors,” have repeatedly made the site’s top page), YouTube Kids is ostensibly supposed to be totally free of this kind of content. It’s also likely that many parents are letting their kids watch it unattended, which may be ill-advised on the parents’ part, but is clearly part of the site’s business model.
YouTube has previously promised to clear out this kind of content, and shut down a number of channels featuring inappropriate videos starting last year. It’s debatable whether it’s actually possible to ensure this stuff doesn’t begin creeping in, though, since there are millions upon millions of videos intended for children available on both the main site and YouTube Kids, and YouTube and its parent company Google tend to rely first and foremost on algorithms to police this sea of content rather than human moderators. When it began paying attention in November 2017, YouTube demonetized at least two million videos and 50,000 channels with disturbing content aimed at kids, suggesting the scale of the problem whichever app is used.
In a statement to Business Insider, YouTube even alluded to how solutions to this problem rely on its “human trained systems” rather than actual humans:
The YouTube Kids app is home to a wide variety of content that includes enriching and entertaining videos for families. This content is screened using human trained systems. That being said, no system is perfect and sometimes we miss the mark. When we do, we take immediate action to block the videos or, as necessary, channels from appearing in the app. We will continue to work to improve the YouTube Kids app experience.
In any case, prior advice stands: Don’t let YouTube babysit your childrenunless you want them watching disturbing Spiderman-bikini girl mashups, videos of Peppa Pig being fed bleach, or apparently, elderly British men telling them that the government is secretly staffed by alien lizard monsters wearing human skin.
It's another scheme for finding the Romulans or the Borg — and it definitely has some advantages.
The usual approach to looking for alien societies is to scan the skies for signals like radio transmissions or bright, flashing lasers. Either would tell us that someone's out there.
Lamentably, these schemes have a troublesome drawback: the need for synchronicity between the sender (aliens) and the receiver (us). What are the chances that, when our attention is directed to a particular planetary system, their transmitters are aimed our way? It's like two pairs of eyes meeting across a crowded casino. It might not happen.
That's why a detection scheme that doesn't depend on synchronicity has such great appeal. The idea is to hunt for evidence that's always around — artifacts that might even outlast the extraterrestrials themselves, in the same way that fossilized bones reveal the long-gone dinosaurs. We've never seen a T. rex, nor heard its roar. But we have no doubt that they once stomped across the landscape.
Maybe we could sniff out our bumpy-headed brethren by examining the atmosphere around their home planet. For example, we might use instruments to look for the presence of chlorofluorocarbons — the woeful result of too much Klingon hairspray.
Sadly, detecting this gas from light-years away is beyond the capabilities of even the biggest telescopes. But there's another kind of artifact that might be possible to find. Spanish astronomer Hector Socas-Navarro argues in a new paper that we might look for artificial satellites around distant planets. After all, satellites are something you might expect any respectable alien society to have.
For us earthlings, satellites serve a multitude of functions, including spying on our enemies, enabling GPS, and furnishing the endlessly fascinating imagery you can peruse on Google Earth.
But one subclass of the 3,000 or so satellites swarming around Earth is particularly useful: the 400 that pirouette around the planet at roughly 22,000 miles above the equator. At that altitude, these so-called geostationary satellites complete one orbit every 24 hours, the same rate at which the Earth spins. Consequently, they appear fixed in the sky. That makes them especially handy for photographing the weather, relaying international phone calls, and beaming down satellite TV.
Now suppose there are aliens out there who are substantially more advanced than we are. Their planet might be orbited by billions or trillions of geosynchronous satellites instead of our measly 400. And astronomers might be able to detect this orbiting thicket of space hardware when the planet comes between us and its host star — what astronomers call a transit.
If this were to happen, the dimming of starlight caused by the planet would be preceded and then followed by a very slight dimming by its satellite necklace. This would be especially pronounced if we saw the necklace edge-on, which would block out more starlight and thus be more noticeable.
The beauty of this scheme is manifold. To begin with, there's no synchronicity problem, so the aliens don't need to make any effort to get in touch. Even if they managed to blow themselves to smithereens millions of years ago, their satellites might still be around to mark their collective grave.
In addition, this approach requires no new telescopes nor even any new experiments. Astronomers would only need to do a careful check of data that's already been collected in the search for exoplanets.
Despite what you see on TV and in movies, we're unlikely to meet aliens anytime soon. In fact, we're not even sure aliens are out there. But Hector Socas-Navarro's idea of looking for massive satellite swarms is a clever one. Its chances for success may not be great, but it's easy to try. And there's no winning this game without playing.
Dr. Seth Shostak is the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California and a noted expert on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Silent cool waters dancing upon her skin ~ silent cool water ushering dreams within…” ― Muse, Enigmatic Evolution
There have been many theories about Atlantis. A great naval power in the ancient world, the utopian island kingdom mysteriously disappeared into the sea over the course of a single day. Some researchers have a firm belief that this mysterious island existed very much in history, while some suggest that it just existed in the pages of history as a speculated story. According to Plato, Atlantis existed 9,000 years ago, even before his time.
Here is a list of 6 such theories about this mysterious lost civilization.
1 – Atlantis Was A Continent In The Mid Atlantic That Suddenly Sunk Into The Ocean
The speculations about the existence of Atlantis surfaced in the 19th century, when in 1882 Ignatius Donnelly in his book, ‘Atlantis, the Antediluvian World’ mentioned the arguments that metallurgy, language and agriculture, are things handed over to people who were more advanced, civilised and knowledgable. He kind of supported the theory proposed by Plato that Atlantis sank because of flooding due to shifting ocean waters.
2 – The Bermuda Triangle Swallowed Up Atlantis
Some researchers believe in the theory that Donnelly proposed and some don’t. Those who believed in the Donnelly’s speculation, proposed their own claims as to where Atlantis must have been. One of the writers were Charles Berlitz. He claimed that Atlantis was a real continent located off the Bahamas that had fallen victim to the notorious Bermuda Triangle. Supporters of this theory believe that there were walls and street like remains found in the coast of Bimini.
3 – Atlantis Was Antarctica
Some theorists believe that Atlantis was a more temperate version of Antarctica. It is based on the work of Charles Hapgood, ‘Earth’s Shifting Crust’ according to which, around 12,000 years ago the Earth’s crust shifted, and displaced the continent that became Antarctica from a location that was much further north than it is today.
4 – The Story Of Atlantis Was A Mythical Retelling Of The Black Sea Flood
Black Sea
The researchers who proposed this theory believed that Atlantis was not real but the story of its demise was inspired by the real life incident of flooding of the Black Sea, around 5600 B.C. The flooding inundated civilizations known to flourish along its shore and as the inhabitants of the region scattered, they spread tales of the deluge.
5 – Atlantis Is The Story Of The Minoan Civilization That Flourished In The Greek Islands Circa 2500-1600 B.C
Minoan Civilization
One of the most recent theories that are proposed by the researchers concerns the civilization that flourished on the Greek islands of Crete and Thera (now Santorini) more than 4,000 years ago, the Minoans. This was considered as Europe’s first great civilization. This great and powerful civilisation suddenly disappeared, which is linked to Plato’s theory relating to the sudden disappearance of Atlantis. Theorists believe that the Minoans disappeared following a massive Earthquake and Tsunami.
6 – Atlantis Didn’t Exist At All–Plato Invented It
Plato (428/427 - 348/347 BCE) is considered the pre-eminent Greek philosopher, known for his Dialogues and for founding his Academy north of Athens, traditionally considered the first university in the western world.
The theorists who don’t believe Atlantis was real, support the claims that Plato’s theory of Atlantis was nothing else than fiction. They also believe that Plato invented Atlantis as his vision of an ideal civilization, and intended the story of its demise to be a cautionary tale of the gods punishing human hubris.
Despite many research efforts by the modern oceanography, no substantial proofs of a sunken civilisation have been found.
DON’T TALK TO ALIENS, WARNS STEPHEN HAWKING (VIDEO)
DON’T TALK TO ALIENS, WARNS STEPHEN HAWKING (VIDEO)
The aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.
The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.
Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.
Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.
“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”
The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals — the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history.
One scene in his documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where they are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.
Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.
He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
The completion of the documentary marks a triumph for Hawking, now 68, who is paralysed by motor neurone disease and has very limited powers of communication. The project took him and his producers three years, during which he insisted on rewriting large chunks of the script and checking the filming.
John Smithson, executive producer for Discovery, said: “He wanted to make a programme that was entertaining for a general audience as well as scientific and that’s a tough job, given the complexity of the ideas involved.”
Hawking has suggested the possibility of alien life before but his views have been clarified by a series of scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery, since 1995, of more than 450 planets orbiting distant stars, showing that planets are a common phenomenon.
So far, all the new planets found have been far larger than Earth, but only because the telescopes used to detect them are not sensitive enough to detect Earth-sized bodies at such distances.
Another breakthrough is the discovery that life on Earth has proven able to colonise its most extreme environments. If life can survive and evolve there, scientists reason, then perhaps nowhere is out of bounds.
Hawking’s belief in aliens places him in good scientific company. In his recent Wonders of the Solar System BBC series, Professor Brian Cox backed the idea, too, suggesting Mars, Europa and Titan, a moon of Saturn, as likely places to look.
Similarly, Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, warned in a lecture earlier this year that aliens might prove to be beyond human understanding.
“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive,” he said. “Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”
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Ancient Oceans on Mars May Have Been Older and Shallower Than Thought
Ancient Oceans on Mars May Have Been Older and Shallower Than Thought
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor
The early Mars ocean known as Arabia (left in blue) would have looked much like this when it formed on the Red Planet 4 billion years ago, when the planet's smaller Deuteronilus ocean was 3.6 billion years old. Their water is now gone, possibly frozen underground or partially lost to space.
Credit: Robert Citron images, UC Berkeley
The rise of the largest volcanoes in the solar system may have led Mars to possess oceans hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought, a new study finds.
Although Mars is now cold and dry, there is widespread evidence that oceans once covered much of the Red Planet's surface. However, there are scientists who hotly debate this idea, arguing that there are plenty of signs against Mars once having seas.
For example, previous research found signs of ancient shorelines lining the northern plains of Mars for thousands of miles. However, skeptics point out that shorelines generally trace a mostly constant sea-level surface. In contrast, these Martian features are very irregular, "varying in elevation by up to several kilometers," study lead author Robert Citron, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Space.com. [The Search for Water on Mars in Photos]
Previous research has suggested the variations in these shorelines might have occurred after the formation of Tharsis, a region 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide that holds the biggest volcanoes in the solar system. The creation of a "volcanic province" with the mass of Tharsis could have shifted the axis on which Mars spins, potentially explaining shoreline elevation variations.
However, for Tharsis to change Mars' pole of rotation, this volcanic region would need to have formed far from the equator. In contrast, prior work found that it formed near the equator.
Now, researchers suggest that Tharsis could help explain the irregular shorelines of Mars if oceans on the Red Planet existed before and/or during the time that Tharsis arose 3.7 billion years ago, instead of afterward, as once assumed. This new model suggests that oceans on Mars formed hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought.
The Tharsis volcanic region of Mars, as seen by NASA's Viking mission. At left is the enormous Olympus Mons. The chain of volcanoes at lower right consists of, from bottom to top, Arsia, Pavonis and Ascraeus Mons.
Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
The scientists modeled what previous research suggested was the first ocean of Mars, called Arabia, as well as a subsequent ocean, called Deuteronilus. They next calculated the effects of the rise of Tharsis on these oceans.
The scientists found that, if Arabia started forming on Mars at least 4 billion years ago and existed, perhaps intermittently, during as much as the first 20 percent of the growth of Tharsis, the volcanic province could have deformed Arabia's shoreline over time. Similarly, irregularities seen in the shoreline of Deuteronilus could be explained if it formed about 3.6 billion years ago, during the last 17 percent of Tharsis' growth.
"Massive deformation by Tharsis could explain why these shorelines deviated from a constant elevation," Citron said.
In addition, these findings suggested that the oceans on ancient Mars were shallower than previously thought. If the seas filled before Tharsis was fully formed — and therefore hadn't deformed the Red Planet crust too much yet — they would have held about half the water of prior estimates, the researchers determined.
The scientists also suggested that the volcanic eruptions that created Tharsis also generated channels that allowed water to fill the northern plains. This would account for the valley networks seen on Mars.
A map of Mars today shows where scientists have identified possible ancient shoreline that may have been etched by intermittent oceans billions of years ago. The irregular elevations of these shorelines can be explained by the growth of the volcanic province called Tharsis some 3.7 billion years ago, which would have deformed the topography and misaligned the shorelines. Arabia (magenta) is more than 4 million years old, while the Deuteronilus (white) and Isidis (cyan) shoreline are several million years younger. The solid contour lines represent the Tharsis bulge (left) and the antipodal bulge it created (right), with dashed contour lines indicating the depressions in between.
Robert Citron images, UC Berkeley.
Tharsis likely spewed gases into the atmosphere that created a global warming or greenhouse effect, said study senior author Michael Manga, also of UC Berkeley. This may have enabled liquid water to exist on the Martian surface, he added.
To further test these findings, more precise mapping and dating of Tharsis and these ancient shorelines is needed, Citron said. NASA's next Mars lander, InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport), which is scheduled for launch in May, will place a seismometer on the surface to probe the Red Planet's interior.
"It could potentially detect the presence of subsurface frozen water, which could be a remnant of a past ocean," Citron said.
Depiction of the InSight mission lander, which is scheduled for launch in May and expected to land on the surface of Mars in November to probe the interior of the planet.
NASA image.
The scientists detailed their findingsonline March 19 in the journal Nature.
Bewijst Stephen Hawkings laatste artikel dat het multiversum bestaat? Dit werk kan ons beeld van het heelal compleet veranderen
Bewijst Stephen Hawkings laatste artikel dat het multiversum bestaat? Dit werk kan ons beeld van het heelal compleet veranderen
De Britse natuurkundige Stephen Hawking beschreef kort voor zijn dood hoe het bestaan van andere universa kan worden aangetoond. Zijn werk wordt momenteel beoordeeld door het Amerikaanse tijdschrift Physical Review Letters.
Hawking voltooide het artikel, dat volgens de Sunday Times mogelijk zijn belangrijkste nalatenschap is voor de mensheid, vlak voor zijn dood.
Volgens de natuurkundige moeten er meerdere universa bestaan. De kosmische achtergrondstraling zou kunnen worden gebruikt om het bestaan ervan aan te tonen.
Baanbrekend
Hawking beschrijft in zijn artikel hoe een ruimteschip kan worden ingezet om het idee van een multiversum te testen en wetenschappelijk aan te tonen.
Aan de hand van een detector die vastgemaakt wordt aan het ruimteschip kunnen andere universa gedetecteerd worden, zo schreef Hawking.
In zo’n multiversum zijn er meerdere universa. Wetenschappers noemen dit werk baanbrekend en ze zeggen dat het ons beeld van het heelal compleet kan veranderen.
Meest spectaculaire
Als de methode van Hawking en zijn Belgische collega Thomas Hertog inderdaad kan aantonen dat het multiversum bestaat, zou dat één van de meest spectaculaire wetenschappelijke ontdekkingen uit de geschiedenis zijn.
Hertog zegt tegen HLN dat het artikel Hawking waarschijnlijk de Nobelprijs voor Natuurkunde had opgeleverd.
Stephen Hawking werd tijdens zijn leven meerdere keren genomineerd voor een Nobelprijs, maar won er nooit één.
Universiteit van Californië, BerkleyLinks in het blauw de vroege oceaan Arabia, rechts de latere Deuteronilus. Die laatste had een kleinere kustlijn. Aan de onzichtbare kant van Mars ligt het vulkanische gebied Tharsis.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETWetenschappers van de universiteit van Californië, Berkley hebben in het wetenschappelijk tijdschrift Nature een nieuwe theorie gepubliceerd over de manier waarop de oceanen van Mars ontstonden en weer verdwenen de afgelopen 4 miljard jaar. En die zou een antwoorden bieden op enkele van de mysteries waarover onderzoekers zich al jaren het hoofd breken.
De geofysici linken de oceanen van Mars aan het ontstaan van het grootste vulkanische systeem in ons zonnestelsel – Tharsis – en de sleutelrol die de opwarming van de planeet speelde in het mogelijk maken van vloeibaar water op de rode planeet.
Zij die beweren dat er nooit vloeibaar water was op Mars, verwijzen naar het feit dat de grootte van de oceanen niet strookt met de schatting van de hoeveelheid water die er in de ijskappen en bevroren ondergrond van Mars zit en verdampt kan zijn in de ruimte. Er zou in dat scenario niet genoeg water aanwezig geweest zijn om de oceanen te vullen. (lees hieronder verder)
Thinkstock
Volgens de nieuwe theorie zouden de oceanen zich echter 300 miljoen jaar eerder gevormd hebben, vóór of op hetzelfde moment als Tharsis. Omdat het vulkanische gebied toen nog niet zo groot was, verstoorde het de planeet nog niet zo veel als later. In het bijzonder de vlakten die het grootste deel van de noordelijke hemisfeer bedekken en waarvan gedacht wordt dat ze de oude oceaanbodem zijn. De zeeën zouden daardoor minder diep zijn geweest en maar de helft van het water bevat hebben als altijd werd aangenomen.
“Tot nu toe werd aangenomen dat het vulkanische systeem Tharsis zich vroeg en snel ontwikkelde en dat de oceanen pas later kwamen”, aldus professor Michael Manga, een van de auteurs van de paper die deze week in Nature verscheen. “Volgens ons kwamen de oceanen eerst en lagen ze er al toen het vulkanische gebied met zijn lavastromen ontstond.”
Gassen
“We vermoeden dat Tharsis gassen de atmosfeer in spuwde, die een broeikaseffect deed ontstaan die vloeibaar water aan de oppervlakte mogelijk maakte. En dat vulkaanuitbarstingen kanalen deden ontstaan die het ondergrondse water toeliet om de oppervlakte te bereiken en de noordelijke vlaktes met water te vullen”, aldus nog Manga. (lees hieronder verder)
afp
De nieuwe theorie rekent ook af met een ander argument tegen het bestaan van oceanen op Mars: dat de kustlijnen van de oceanen erg onregelmatig zijn en in hoogte tot wel 1.000 meter verschillen. Terwijl ze zoals op de Aarde eigenlijk vlak zouden moeten zijn.
Kustlijn
Dat kan volgens de studie verklaard worden als de eerste oceaan – Arabia – zich 4 miljoen jaar geleden begon te vormen en - eventueel met tussenpozen - bestond tijdens de eerste 20 procent van het ontstaan van Tharsis. De groeiende vulkaan kan het land omlaaggedrukt hebben en de kustlijn vervormd hebben, wat de onregelmatigheden in de hoogte van de kustlijn van Arabia kan verklaren. De onregelmatige kustlijn van de volgende oceaan – Deuteronilus – kan op vergelijkbare wijze worden verklaard als die ontstond tijdens de laatste 17 procent van het ontstaan van Tharsis, ongeveer 3,6 miljard jaar geleden. (lees hieronder verder)
thinkstock
Tharsis deed uiteindelijk een bult ontstaan aan de andere kant van de planeet en een laagte halfweg ertussen. Het verklaart waarom het volume water dat die laagte nu kan bevatten twee keer zo groot is dan wat de nieuwe studie schat dat die bevatte 4 miljoen jaar geleden”, klinkt het nog.
Hypothese
De onderzoekers drukken er wel op dat het om een hypothese gaat. “Maar wetenschappers kunnen een preciezere datering proberen te maken van Tharsis en de kustlijnen om te zien of ze overeind blijft”, aldus Manga.
De volgende Marslander van de NASA kan ook helpen om het raadsel te ontrafelen. Hij wordt in mei gelanceerd en zal een seismometer op de bodem van de planeet zetten, die een beeld moet geven van wat er zich onder het oppervlakte van Mars afspeelt. En misschien wel bevroren overblijfselen kan vinden van die eeuwenoude oceaan of zelfs vloeibaar water.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEET Een zeewezen dat lijkt op het monster van Loch Ness wekt heel wat nieuwsgierigheid op. Op amateurbeelden is te zien hoe een karkas op het strand van Wolf Island in de Amerikaanse staat Georgia ligt. Volgens experts is het niet meteen duidelijk om welk zeewezen het precies gaat.
Has the Loch Ness Monster been found dead in the US? Mystery beast found washed
Is het Loch Ness Monster dood terug gevonden in the US? Een mysterieus beest aangespoeld gevonden
Warren, een visser uit Waycross in de Amerikaanse staat Georgia, was aan het varen met zijn zoon in de buurt van Wolf Island toen hij het vreemde zeewezen ontdekte. Aanvankelijk dacht hij dat het om een dode zeehond ging. Toen de man een foto maakte, merkte hij op dat het dier lijkt op het monster van Loch Ness, het mythische wezen dat volgens een legende rondzwemt in het troebele water van het gelijknamige meer in Schotland.
Enkele experts zagen de beelden op het internet, maar konden het wezen niet onmiddellijk identificeren. Sommigen beweren dat het om een franjehaai gaat, anderen zeggen dat het een reuzenhaai is. Vooralsnog zijn wetenschappers het grondig oneens. Een reuzenhaai is immers zo’n acht meter lang, maar het aangespoelde dier is veel kleiner.
iStockPaaseiland lokt jaarlijks vele toeristen naar zijn kusten, vulkanische landschappen en de wereldberoemde Moai, de gigantische stenen standbeelden.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETPaaseiland en zijn mysterieuze geschiedenis verdwijnen langzaam onder de stijgende zee. In de komende jaren kunnen de oude en wereldberoemde reusachtige sculpturen langzaam worden opgeslokt door de golven. Het raadsel achter de beelden blijft zo misschien wel voor altijd onopgelost.
De geheimzinnige beelden - de moai - behoren tot de beroemdste sculpturen ter wereld. De metershoge beeldhouwwerken uit vulkanisch gesteente maken Paaseiland een van de meest fascinerende plekken op aarde.
De beelden, die aan de kust van het klein eiland in de Stille Oceaan staan, herinneren aan de bloeiende civilisatie die er eeuwen geleden bestond. Polynesiërs bevolkten het eiland en bouwden honderden sculpturen tussen de 12de eeuw en 15de eeuw. Maar nu zou het allemaal vernietigd kunnen worden, waarschuwen de Verenigde Naties in een bericht. De oorzaak is de klimaatverandering. Sommige klimaatmodellen voorspellen dat de zeespiegel tussen de 1,5 en 1,8 meter zal stijgen tegen 2100. Volgens een artikel in de New York Times vrezen bewoners en wetenschappers het einde van de moai en de historische graven. Stormen en golven vormen een bedreiging zoals nooit tevoren.
Easter Island is eroding. Climate change is threatening its future, and also its past. http://nyti.ms/2FD0sBS
Easter Island Is Eroding
Rising ocean levels are causing waves to break on the statues and platforms built a thousand years ago. The island risks losing its cultural heritage. Again.
Drie van de beroemdste toeristische attracties op het eiland zijn bedreigd, zo stelt de New York Times. Het ceremonie-platform Tongariki met vijftien moai, die landinwaarts kijken. Anakena; een strand met wit koraalzand waar volgens de overlevering een Polynesische hoofdman met zijn gevolg landde en dat eiland koloniseerde. En Akahanga, waar de eerste koning van de Rapa Nui, de inheemse bevolking, is begraven in een tombe.
Nog steeds is niet opgehelderd hoe de sculpturen, die tot 200 ton wegen, werden gebouwd en waardoor de bevolking is gedecimeerd nadat de Nederlander Jacob Roggeveen het eiland op paaszondag 1722 ontdekte.
Muur
Volgens de New York Times proberen de eilandbewoners tegen de natuur te vechten. Zij bouwden een muur als bescherming tegen de golven. Als die niet de erosie stopt, moeten zij de sculpturen van de kust weghalen om ze te redden. Een wetenschapper waarschuwt hiervoor: “Dat kan je doen, maar dan verlies je hun geschiedenis.”
A few years ago, an April Fool’s piece in the Daily Mail referred to “the U.S. Military’s supposed research into using microwaves as a mind control weapon”. For many people, however, the subject is no joke. Machines designed to tamper with a victim’s thoughts are, according to those who know about such things, employed on a routine basis by governments and other agencies. What few people realize, however, is that reports of such devices have a long history that stretches back more than two hundred years.
Until relatively recently, belief in mind control machines was automatically assumed to be a sign of madness. The first detailed study of the subject was an article entitled “On the Origin of the Influencing Machine in Schizophrenia”, written by the Austrian psychoanalyst Viktor Tausk in 1919. From a study of various psychiatric patients, Tausk concluded that a relatively common form of delusion involved what he referred to as an “influencing machine” (or in the original German, Beeinflussungs-apparat): a device that “produces, as well as removes, thoughts and feelings by means of waves or rays or mysterious forces which the patient’s knowledge of physics is inadequate to explain”.
If such beliefs are symptomatic of mental illness, then according to Mike Jay “Patient Zero” was an English businessman named James Tilly Matthews. In 1797, after accusing the government of treasonous conspiracy, Matthews was incarcerated in the Bedlam lunatic asylum in London. It was there that he developed his theory of the “Air Loom” – the progenitor of all future influencing machines and mind control devices. To quote from Jay’s article:
Matthews was convinced that outside the grounds of Bedlam, in a basement cellar by London Wall, a gang of villains were controlling and tormenting his mind with diabolical rays. They were using a machine called an Air Loom, of which Matthews was able to draw intimate technical diagrams, and which combined recent developments in gas chemistry with the strange force of animal magnetism, or mesmerism. […] Its discharges of magnetic fluid were focused to deliver thoughts, feelings and sensations directly into Matthews’ brain. […] To facilitate this process, the gang had implanted a magnet into his head. As a result of the Air Loom, Matthews was tormented constantly by delusions, physical agonies, fits of laughter and being forced to parrot whatever nonsense they chose to feed into his head.
The Air Loom
In an article about the Air Loom in the May 2003 issue of Fortean Times, Mark Pilkington described how subsequent delusions evolved to keep pace with the latest developments in science: “patients were quick to grasp new technologies in their attempts to rationalize what was happening to them”. In 1886, soon after the invention of the telephone, one doctor observed that his patients would now complain “that people use these instruments to torment them”. In 1897, the Swedish author August Strindberg wrote in his autobiography that “the idea that I was being persecuted by enemies who employed electricity began to obsess me”. By the time Tausk came to write his famous paper in 1919, the situation had evolved still further:
The schizophrenic influencing machine is a machine of mystical nature. The patients are able to give only vague hints of its construction. It consists of boxes, cranks, levers, wheels, buttons, wires, batteries, and the like. Patients endeavour to discover the construction of the apparatus by means of their technical knowledge, and it appears that with the progressive popularization of the sciences, all the forces known to technology are utilized to explain the functioning of the apparatus. All the discoveries of mankind, however, are regarded as inadequate to explain the marvellous powers of this machine, by which the patients feel themselves persecuted.
Despite their technical sophistication, the mind control devices – from the days of the Air Loom to the early 20th century – were always the work of human beings. Sometimes the shadowy operators were members of a criminal gang, in other cases they were agents of the government – but no-one imagined they were anything but human. Then Richard Shaver came onto the scene, and everything changed.
On the face of it, Shaver was a science fiction writer. The bulk of his output was published in Amazing Stories magazine, under the editorship of Ray Palmer, between 1945 and 1949. But Shaver maintained that his writings were based on the truth, and Palmer went along with this – presenting the stories in the guise of a neo-fortean “Shaver Mystery”. Central to the Shaver Mystery was the idea of a vast, unknown subterranean world populated by ancient, degenerate creatures known as “deros”. According to David Hatcher Childress, writing in Lost Continents and the Hollow Earth:
The deros have special beam weapon rays that they use to create as much trouble with the outside world as possible. The dero secretly foster wars, crimes and disasters while working among surface people or using their “controlling rays”. These rays can create solid-looking illusions, nightmares, hypnotic compulsions and urges to commit a crime.
This is remarkably close to the widespread belief in clandestine government activities that can be found on the web today – not just mind control on an industrial scale, but the deliberate creation of wars and “natural” disasters.
So was Shaver telling the truth? Many people will have difficulty with the concept of subterranean deros… but if he had talked about aliens, or an alliance between aliens and the government, his ideas would still meet with approval in many quarters today. This begs the question: were Shaver’s deros really aliens who created the illusion of a vast underground world in his mind?
And that brings us up against the Catch-22 of mind control. If Shaver was lying, or deluded, then of course we can’t believe a word he said. But if he was telling the truth – and he really was the victim of systematic mind control – then… well, we still can’t believe a word he said, can we?
We all want to be a little smarter, a little more effective and skilled. Some people exercise and take vitamins, some people do jigsaw puzzles, and some of our Silicon Valley overlords micro-dose themselves with LSD every morning. Now an Australian company has developed a new tool in our eternal quest for perfection. HUMM Tech recently announced the Edge V One, a wearable device—a headband, to be precise—they claim can boost brain power by up to 20%, but some experts worry that this headband of intellect could be hacked to mind control the person wearing it.
The Edge V One works by reading the electrical signals produced by the brain and delivering a small jolt of electricity approximately equivalent to the power of an electric toothbrush to parts of the brain that are not performing at optimum levels. CEO of HUMM Tech Iain Mcintyre described it like this:
What we’re doing is artificially connecting parts of the brain and letting those parts of the brain talk to each other better.
Our understanding of consciousness and the human brain is being upended all the time. Recently, we’ve learned that about the role of brain waves in consciousness, and we have a better picture of what the mind looks like. This brain boosting headband seems to fall in line with many other current discoveries.
Studies show that the mind looks like a wave of electricity through the brain. This device can, allegedly, redirect that electricity to boost brain power.
HUMM Tech says that their headband is the “beginning of a revolution,” that will lead to direct human interfacing with machines. They did, however, agree that there was a risk to the technologies. Asked if the tech was a type of mind-control, HUMM Tech co-founder Dr. Tim Fiori said it was “kind of mind-control.” Iain Mcintyre also agreed that, if the technology was abused, it might be possible for bad actors to hack the brains of those who wear this device.
Perhaps we should be concerned with this potential mind control technology falling into the hands of companies who have already admitted efforts to manipulate populations getting their hands on it. Facebook is currently working on similar technologies, as is Elon Musk, and as our own Brent Swancer recently examined, government research into mind control is a well established tradition.
Iain Mcintyre described the potential applications of machine interfacing technologies in a way that sounds like a dream come true for Facebook, and many Facebook users:
“Instead of needing to type on your phone, your brain can send the word to the person you want to message.”
So, machine enabled telepathy. Telepathy filtered through the corporate service providing it. Yikes. Will we soon see targeted ads based on our dreams and private thoughts?
This is what the zombie apocalypse looks like.
Of course, none of this is a new idea. Transhumanism has been around for a long time, but it’s only now that the first wave of technologies are being released to the civilian population. Should we run for the hills?
That’s up to you. Every technological revolution carries with it new and weird risks that were impossible to conceive of before it was invented. As our capability for incredible and amazing feats of progress increases, so too does our capability for exciting new ways to do terrible things to each other. So it goes.
At least this headband might let you savagely beat your friends at video games before Facebook completely zombifies you.
The Edge V One will be released on Kickstarter later this year.
Scientists Are Amazed By Stone Age Tools They Dug Up In Kenya
Scientists Are Amazed By Stone Age Tools They Dug Up In Kenya
Rhitu Chatterjee
Assortment of Early and Middle Stone Age tools found in the Olorgesailie Basin, Kenya. The tool at left is a hand axe.
Jay Reed/NPR
Our ancestors in Kenya's Southern Rift Valley made some pretty innovative tools. And they made them far earlier than previously thought.
The oldest innovations were axes designed to be held in the palm of the hand. They were shaped like a tear drop, with a rounded end and a pointed eye. The edges were wavy and sharp. And they look as if they were great at chopping down branches — or chopping up the carcass of a large animal.
This early Stone Age hand axe was excavated at Olorgesailie, Kenya. A chemical analysis of the stone shows it was made with locally available rocks.
Jay Reed/NPR
"I think of the hand axes as the Swiss army knife of the Stone Age," says paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins program at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and one of the lead scientists in a new study by a team of international scientists.
The researchers also found that the next technological revolution, marking the beginning of the Middle Stone Age happened tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
And the researchers think that long periods of stress from repeated earthquakes and cycles of drought and heavy rains may have pushed these early humans to partner up with neighboring communities to come up with ways to cope.
Rick Potts, director of the National Museum of Natural History's Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian. He has been excavating in the Southern Rift Valley in Kenya since the 1980s.
Jay Reed
The team was digging in a region called Olorgesailie in southern Kenya, an area filled with layers of sediment dating back 1.2 million years. The oldest stone tools discovered there are characteristic of what's called the Acheulian culture of the Early Stone Age and consisted mostly of the hand axes.
In this Olorgesailie Basin excavation site, red ocher pigments were found with Middle Stone Age artifacts. This is the earliest evidence of the extraction and use of pigments among ancient humans.
Human Origins Program/Smithsonian
In addition to branch- and carcass-chopping, the axes were likely used to dig for water to drink or tubers to eat. The carcasses probably belonged to large animals like the giant (now extinct) ancestors of hippos, elephants and wild pigs that roamed the grasslands back then. Potts says the ancient humans of that time likely scavenged dead animals, as their heavy, clunky hand axes wouldn't have served well for hunting big game. "These are very large tools," he says. "They might have been thrown but not very accurately."
The hand axe was a multipurpose tool used by our ancestors for chopping up branches and carcasses as well as digging for tubers. They remained unchanged for several hundred thousand years.
Jay Reed/NPR
Nevertheless, these hand axes served the ancient humans well for several hundred thousand years — from 1.2 million years ago to 500,000 years ago — and the technology remained largely unchanged during the time.
But around 320,000 years ago, the ancient humans seem to have switched to an entirely new technology. The scientists found numerous smaller, flatter, sharper stone tools.
"We see a smaller technology, a more diverse series of stone tools," says Potts. These tools were designed for specific purposes — some were used as blades, some as scrapers or spear heads. The scientists report their findings in three new studies published Thursday in the journal Science.
"In Olorgesailie, you have the only record of the last million years in Africa," says Marta Mirazon Lahr, a paleoanthropologist who wasn't involved in the new study. And it's "the earliest ever documented Middle Stone Age in the whole continent."
The new studies also show that by 320,000 years ago this technology was well established in the region, suggesting that human ancestors likely started developing it even earlier, she says.
"The technology they have is not a crude, early version of the Middle Stone Age. It is the full-blown Middle Stone Age," Lahr says. "They have stone tools that are small, that are prepared and retouched, that are made with technique thought to come hundreds of thousands of years later."
Obsidian rock found at Olorgesailie was originally brought by the ancient humans from distant places, some as far away as 50 miles from the site. Scientists think this is evidence of a larger social network of groups of ancient people who stayed in touch and exchanged obsidian and other resources.
Jay Reed/NPR
The diversity of stone tools from the Middle Stone Age suggests advanced thinking and planning. "The flakes are being much more carefully prepared for a particular purpose," says Alison Brooks, an anthropologist at George Washington University and an author of the three studies.
"They are fairly small in size, compared to the technology of earlier people. And in addition, they are made with much finer grained material," which allowed them to better control shapes and sizes of the stone tools.
"We see the ability to produce small triangular points, that look like they were projectile points," says Potts. "They were tapered at the end, so that could have been put on the shaft of something that flewthrough the air." In other words, a potentially lethal spear.
So our ancestors likely shifted from scavenging to hunting. An analysis of the fossilized animal bones found in the sediments show that people in that periodwere eating a range of mammals — which were by now much smaller, and closer in size to the animals of today — including hares, rabbits and springbok and even a couple of species of birds and fishes, says Brooks.
And they weren't just picking up nearby stones to create their weapons. Earlier hand axes were made primarily from volcanic basalt, sourced within 2 to 2.5 miles of where these humans lived. The latter weapons were made of stoneslike obsidian, which originated far from Olorgesailie.
A small stone point made of non-local obsidian. The chemical composition of the artifact matches obsidian sources as far as 55 miles away.
Jay Reed/NPR
"That black obsidian, that rare rock was being transported, brought in in chunks, from 15 to 30 miles away," says Potts. "We have a couple of rocks that were brought from up to 55 miles away."
These distances are far greater than what modern-day hunter gatherers travel over the course of a year, he says.
"They weren't just traveling long distances and chipping rocks as they go," he adds. "If they did that, then there would have just been small chips of obsidian left at the archaeological sites where we dig. Instead we see large pieces of raw material coming in. The rocks were shaped at Olorgesaile itself."
That kind of exchange of raw materials is a tell-tale sign of exchange between different groups of people, the scientists say. "In the Middle Stone Age, we begin to see the early stages of social networks, of being aware of another group and exchanging rocks over longer distances."
Potts and his colleagues also find evidence of exchange of brightly colored red and black rocks that were then drilled into, possibly to extract pigment. This is the earliest evidence of the extraction of pigments, says Lahr.
It's also evidence of a complex culture, where the ancient humans probably used pigments symbolically — perhaps to paint themselves, or their hides, or weapons. And where different groups exchanged raw materials (and possibly food).
Red rock found on the site. There is evidence that the rock was drilled to extract its red pigment.
Jay Reed/NPR
There's that same kind of exchange today, says Brooks, referring to hunter gatherer groups like the Hadza people of northern Tanzania.
"They deliberately maintain distant contacts with people in these other groups," she says. They have strategies to maintain these contacts — either by encouraging their children to marry into these other groups, or they take trips to visit the groups, to maintain ties by giving gifts. "It's a way of building up these distant contacts, which are extremely important for their survival."
During times of stress, when food or water is scarce, people from one group can disperse and take shelter with other groups that they've cultivated a relationship with. "So the networks are like money in the bank, or wheat in your silo or cows in your barn," says Brooks. "They don't have any other way of saving for a rainy day."
And as she and her colleagues show, the beginning of the Middle Stone Age in Kenya was preceded by a long and tumultuous phase in the region.
"Things were going haywire, in terms of the development of geological faults, earthquake activity that moved the low places high and the high places low," says Potts. "It changed the shape of the landscape." This was accompanied by repeated cycles of droughts and high rainfall.
"And it is precisely during those time periods that we expect to see hunting and gathering people to move further distances," says Potts, "and to begin to nurture relationships with groups beyond their own group."
It is no different than what humans all over the world do today, he adds. When times are tough, we look for greener pastures. The archaeological records from the Middle Stone Age at Olorgesailie reveal "the roots of that kind of migration," he says.
It seems like each month, there’s a new discovery proclaimed to have the potential to “rewrite the history of human civilization.” Like in every scientific discipline, the exponential rate of technological growth and development has led to many new breakthroughs in human archaeology and anthropology lately. Last year, a set of fossil teeth were discovered in Germany which were claimed to push the earliest known date of human migration back by millions of years. Even as those claims are still being validated, a new discovery published this week has yet again generated headlines of “rewriting” human history.
According to two twinstudies published this week in Science, archaeologists have discovered sophisticated stone tools in Kenya’s Olorgesailie Basin which are the oldest of their kind. In confirmed, this discovery could mean early humans were trading with one another, fashioning tools, and painting objects far earlier than we know – implying a level of intelligence and sophistication usually associated with much more recent ancestors.
Kenya’s Olorgesailie region contains some of the best examples of Stone Age tools known to science.
The majority of the excavation was performed under the direction of by Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution in conjunction with the National Museums of Kenya. The bulk of the discovery consists of stone tools, nearly half of which were carved from obsidian sourced from volcanic areas 50 kilometers away from where they were discovered. These Middle Stone Age tools have been dated to 320,000 years old. Eighty-eight lumps of pigment were also discovered, some of which show evidence of grinding or tooling. The researchers believe these pigments could have been used to signal some sort of group identity or social status, and the fact that they were carried long distances shows they were of some specific significance to the group of humans or human ancestors who left them there.
Unfortunately, the excavation of this site has yet to reveal any hominid fossils, so it’s impossible to tell if these tools were used by early Homo sapiens or by another human ancestor species. George Washington University’s Alison Brooks co-authored these new papers and says that without any definitive fossil record, the identity of these tools’ creators remains a mystery:
There was the argument that Homo sapiens came along and then developed all these things. But now it seems that the behavior and the morphology came along together. Maybe the behavior even came first.
Will we ever really know the early history of our species? Who knows what hidden aspects of history lie just under our feet, forgotten along with so many other vestiges of the past? While this new discovery might not be a perfectly-preserved early human found in a block of ice, it adds to the growing body of evidence which suggests human civilizations could be much older than we think.
Though it may come as a surprise to many, debates surrounding extraterrestrial invasion are not restricted to the UFO community and Hollywood. In recent years, mainstream science and even the US defense establishment have openly discussed ‘falling skies’ scenarios and what humanity might do to repel potential alien aggressors.
The late, great Sir Stephen Hawking was perhaps the most high-profile individual to warn of the potential dangers of extraterrestrial contact. In April 2010, Hawking made international news by stating his firm belief that humanity should seek to avoid any form of interaction with aliens. In an episode of the Discovery Channel’s Into the Universewith Stephen Hawking, the professor said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the American Indians.” Hawking suggested that aliens “might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet” and would perhaps be “looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”
Hawking’s anti-alien comments captured the attention of Hollywood and, later that same year, were incorporated into the marketing campaign for the alien invasion blockbuster, Skyline(2010). The trailer for the film begins with bold text against a cosmic backdrop, reading: “On 28 August 2009, NASA sent a message into space farther than we ever thought possible in an effort to reach extraterrestrial life.”
This is true. On the date specified, the Australian government, through its “Hello from Earth” science initiative, and with the help of NASA, sent some 26,000 carefully vetted messages from the public to the extra-solar Earth-like planet Gliese 581d in a single transmission. This proactive approach to alien contact, known as METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence), differs from the traditional passive approach favored by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which devotes its efforts simply to listening for any potential incoming alien signals. Stephen Hawking was not a fan of the METI approach as he considered it unwise to knowingly alert our presence in the galaxy to any technologically superior civilizations.
In a bid to blur fact and fantasy for viral marketing purposes, Skyline made use of Hawking’s comments in its trailer, which featured well known American newsreaders—including Dan Rather—citing the famed professor on the potential dangers of extraterrestrial contact. The trailer then cuts to panoramic views of an American city being obliterated by dozens of the “massive ships” to which Hawking had referred. Against a black screen, and again referring to the professor’s warning, bold text then reads: “Maybe we should have listened.”
Skyline wasn’t the only movie to draw inspiration from METI initiative, or from Hawking’s dire warnings against phoning E.T. The 2012 movie, Battleship, opens with a scene in which NASA prepares to transmit a signal to the Gliese system, exactly as the space agency had done in real life two-years prior. In the movie, a wise-cracking scientist paraphrases Stephen Hawking, quipping, “it’s going to be like Columbus and the Indians—only we’re the Indians.” But the signal is sent anyway, and NASA gives itself a hearty pat on the back. Needless to say, alien contact ensues, and it ain’t pretty.
In April 2012, a month before the release of Battleship in American cinemas, Professor Paul Springer of the US Air Command and Staff College was granted special clearance by his employers at the Pentagon to discuss how the military would respond in the event of an alien invasion. Springer’s comments were aired in a televised interview for Australia’s Channel 9.
When asked by his interviewer exactly how an alien invasion might unfold, Springer replied:
“That really depends on why they are here in the first place. If they are here for the extraction of a specific resource, for example, they might just want to eliminate any resistance that might block them from their objective. If, on the other hand, their goal was actual occupation and conquest, then they would probably have to prioritize anything they perceive as a threat to their own dominance. So, they would probably start by wiping out as many communications networks as possible and eliminating as many weapons that might represent some form of threat either to them, or to the resources they are trying to extract.”
However, any plans the Pentagon may have drawn to fight-off evil aliens are almost certainly in vein. If any aliens out there do harbor plans for invasion, it is probable that their tactics and technology would make any resistance on our part entirely futile. “If they are hostile,” warns Professor Michio Kaku, “it would be like Bambi meeting Godzilla if we ever had to fight them… we would present no military challenge to such an advanced civilization… We would be a pushover for them. Forget all the Hollywood movies.”
In my book, Silver Screen Saucers, I take Hollywood to task for its simplistic, pumped-up depictions of how an interstellar civilization might invade our planet. If aliens should ever decide to attack Earth for its natural resources (water, minerals, human DNA, etc.), it seems unlikely in the extreme that they would opt for the scorched earth approach depicted in the likes of War of the Worlds and Independence Day. Actually, it seems improbable that the aliens would launch air strikes at all, let alone anything so messy as the ground invasions seen in, say, Falling Skies or Battle: Los Angeles. Any tactics that would provoke a military response from Earth’s leaders would probably result in damage to the very resources the aliens are seeking to acquire, especially if weapons of mass destruction are used by either side.
Even if the aliens’ goal is simply to eradicate humanity, direct engagement with our military forces would likely be entirely unnecessary. Many UFO movies depict aliens using psychic forces to harm or control those around them—but if real aliens have developed advanced psychic abilities, might they be able to use these on a mass scale? If so, our psychically puny species would be conquered within a matter of hours, or instantly, even.
Possible psychic abilities aside, advanced ETs might very well have psychotronic and psychotropic weapons with which to attack the mind, or even weapons that target specific parts of the body, both external and internal—even the heart or brain—causing targets to fall down dead en masse, and all without inflicting so much as a scratch on the skin. There would be no resistance from us, and minimal effort on their part. For Hollywood’s purposes, however, such scenarios are utterly lacking in spectacle and drama.
In his later years, Stephen Hawking remained firm in his stance that the universe is likely teeming with life, some of it intelligent, but he was less optimistic about the inherent benevolence of advanced ET civilizations, believing that advanced technology does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with moral and ethical enlightenment.
Jill Tarter, former Director of SETI.
Before Hawking died, former SETI director Jill Tarter (the real-life Ellie Arroway from Contact) voiced her disagreement with the Cambridge professor about the probable nature of any future alien contact scenarios. Tarter also advised the public to disregard Hollywood entirely as an even remotely realistic representation of what to expect on contact day. “Often the aliens of science fiction say more about us than they do about themselves,” Tarter remarked on the SETI website in 2012. “While Sir Stephen Hawking warned that alien life might try to conquer or colonize Earth, I respectfully disagree. If aliens were able to visit Earth that would mean they would have technological capabilities sophisticated enough not to need slaves, food, or other planets. If aliens were to come here it would be simply to explore.”
Tarter added: “Considering the age of the universe, we probably wouldn’t be their first extraterrestrial encounter, either. We should look at movies like Men in Black, Prometheusand Battleship as great entertainment and metaphors for our own fears, but we should not consider them harbingers of alien visitation.”
David Bowie asked the question. Last week, Barry DiGregorio looked at rover photosof the surface of Mars and decided the grooves in the surface are the same type of fossilized trails and tracks left by bacterial life forms on prehistoric Earth … and NASA is covering up this fact to protect its upcoming manned space missions to allow humans to “discover” life on Mars. Now in a new interview in the Daily Star Online he’s warning NASA – not to mention Elon Musk — that sending humans to Mars would cause the late Mr. Bowie to write a sequel to his song, calling it “Is There Death on Mars?” and the girl with the mousy hair will find out why America has a tortured brow … the life on Mars will kill us.
“Astronauts could be exposed to unknown pathogenic microbes and viruses that we have no idea how to control. That is why it is so important to fly additional life detection instruments to Mars – to make sure it is safe to send human beings or to return samples to Earth.”
Dr. DiGregorio has a point – one that NASA dealt with during the Apollo lunar missions by quarantining everything that they brought back until it was determined there was no life on the astronauts, their equipment or their rocks. Since they were only there for a short period, covered a small area and never breathed the atmosphere – what little there is – NASA felt comfortable nothing would happen to the astronauts while on the Moon. That won’t be the case on Mars and DiGregorio singles out Elon Musk first, since he seems to be leading the way to not just visiting but establishing permanent colonies on the Red Planet.
“He’s totally ignoring the fact that there could be microbial life on Mars, and as far as being a scientist goes, the one thing you want to make sure of is that your people have a degree of confidence that the surface of Mars is sterile.”
Musk might be impressed that DiGregorio thinks he’s a scientist, but he’d most likely disagree that Mars needs to be “sterile” before going there. Livable, breathable and non-fatal are probably good enough for Elon. However, DiGregorio points out another thing that has nothing to do with science.
“If you sent astronauts to Mars and they die of pathogenic diseases from indigenous microbes, you’re not going to have another mission go back there, the publicity would be terrible.”
Have humans really evolved from the days of massive Earth exploration to the point where it will not take on a non-military mission with the near-certainty that some people won’t come back? DiGregorio wants NASA to reduce that risk to near-nothing by sending more robots and autonomous exploration vehicles to Mars with the equipment onboard to find and identify life forms without the need for humans on the Martian surface.
Not everyone in the Martian exploration community believes DiGregorio’s theory that the tracks on Mars are indications of bacterial life. However, his arguments for continued robotic exploration make sense. Is a robot discovering life forms on Mars really anathema to NASA management? NASA public relations? Elon Musk?
Are they spitting in the eyes of fools as they ask us to focus on the best-selling show?
The demise of honey bee populations worldwide has become one of the most pressing ecological concerns of our time. Over the last decade, it’s been estimated that some 30–70% European honey bee colonies have collapsed or disappeared, prompting fears of agricultural collapse due to the vital role honey bees play in pollinating crops. Scientists still aren’t sure what the exact cause of colony collapse might be, although it is believed pesticides, genetically modified crops, or even electromagnetic radiation from cellphone towers might be factors.
Selective commercial breeding is also suspected as contributing to a diminished bee gene pool, opening the doors for many diseases.
To help stave off agricultural catastrophe, engineers around the world have begun tossing around ideas to create tiny droneswhich might pollinate crops in the absence of real bees. While this idea sounds like exactly like a recent Black Mirror episode, things got even more dystopian with the recent discovery of the filing of patent applications for robo-bee systems on behalf of retail giant and all-around nefarious corporation Walmart. What exactly might Walmart be up to?
The same thing they’re up to every night, Pinky: trying to take over the world.
The patent was found and posted online by CB Insights, a market research firm which leverages artificial intelligence to analyze trends and identify future disruptions. The patentdescribes a pretty straightforward centralized network which can control legions of tiny bee drones which go from flower to flower pollinating crops. The patent lists many variations of the same system of pollinating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), some of which do not require human control whatsoever:
In some embodiments, the UAV deployed in the exemplary system does not require physical operation by a human operator and wirelessly communicates with, and is wholly or largely controlled by, the computing device.
Hmm… hordes of tiny autonomous flying bee-bots controlled by the world’s largest retailer…say it with me now: what could go wrong?
A lot, once Wal-Bee version 2.1.0 rolls out.
Walmart has already been aggressively pursuing the grocery market, and many analysts believe these patents show that the massive multinational corporation might be attempting to control the food supply chain. While many of us (myself included) tend to view anything Walmart does with disdain and loathing, CB Insights notes that such a drone bee system could help the retailer “manage crop yields more effectively” and “increase its emphasis on transparency and sustainability to attract shoppers.” Still, is it wise to allow a retailer to have so much control over such a vital part of our society? Time, as always, will tell.
On Saturday, March 3rd, two men armed with instructions on how to contact extraterrestrials and a protocol on what to do if they show up tried to contact aliens on the shore of a lake in Sicamous, British Columbia, Canada. After a few hours of meditating and watching, they left without a successful contact. Did they leave too soon?
On the morning of Sunday, March 4th, a woman walked to the very same lake and spotted a series of mysterious ice circles on the lake’s frozen surface. Coincidence? Contact? Something else?
Let’s start with the location. Shuswap Lake is in south-central British Columbia, Canada, and is known for (among other things) its odd shape – the four fingers of the lake look like the letter H from the air. The name comes from the Shuswap or Secwepemc First Nations people and it’s now a popular recreational lake centered around the city of Salmon Arm, which gets ITS name from the fish and the lake’s appendage. Besides salmon and trout, Shuswap Lake is Like many other lakes, Shuswap Lake has a legendary 25-foot long monster known as the Shuswap Lake Monster or Shuswaggi.
Does it also have close encounters of the third-thru-fifth kind? The Salmon Arm Observer reports that local (Sunnybrae) area resident Grace Edwards was walking on the lake shore in nearby Tappen when she spotted and photographed the ice circles on the frozen lake. These were not ice discs, which are circular pieces of ice formed in cold rivers as the chunks break off and are swirled and worn into circles. What Edwards saw were more like swirling patterns made in the ice – kind of like frozen crop circles. One thought is that they were made by spinning snowmobilers who someone managed to make perfect circles without leaving any other visible tracks. Another thought might be …
Aliens!
Grace Edwards’s photos (see here) were published by the Salmon Arm Observer and other local media, where they eventually were shown to Dan Berg (Berg? As in iceberg? Another coincidence?). Berg is the man who attempted to contact aliens on the night of March 3rd in Sicamous, another small town on Shuswap Lake. He told the Observer that he and a friend from Salmon Arm he met through SETI social media decided to celebrate International CE-5 day by conducting a Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind (direct communications with ETs) using the CE-5 protocol developed by Steven M. Greer of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). For Berg, that was “meditation through consciousness.”
“In my meditation all I did was concentrate on the edge of the Rocky Mountains and Shuswap Lake for 40 minutes nonstop.”
After scanning the skies and their minds for a few hours and seeing nor hearing nothing, Berg and his friend left and thought no more about the incident until someone showed the article about Edwards and the ice circles to Berg. What did he think now?
“I think it was kind of cool and kind of ironic that something as strange as those circles that no one has ever seen before showed up the night that we were out here.”
As with crop circles, the Shuswap Lake ice circles could be explained by humans making very precise patterns in the dark on snowmobiles. Possible? Yes, but the perfection leaves an opening. Is the lake’s H pattern a beacon or marker for aliens? What about the Shuswaggi? Some crytozoologists believe these creatures are visitors from other planets.
Berg has piqued the interest of others and will probably have a crowd with him the next time he tries a CE-5. Let’s hope they bring cameras and a net for the Shuswaggi.
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Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Colorado Springs 3-Mar-2018
Triangle-shaped formation filmed over Colorado Springs 3-Mar-2018
This UFO sighting was filmed in the sky above Colorado Springs on 3rd March 2018.
Witness report:
Bright large stationary orbs disappearing then reappearing. Vacationing with friends and spouse at Cheyanne Mountain resort in Colorado Springs, Co. After a long day of outside activities we returned to the resort for dinner. Afterwards we went to the outside patio to sit at the fire pit and talk about our day.
At first I didn’t notice anything strange but my friend pointed out a weird light in the sky that just hovered. When I looked to where he was pointing I pulled out my iPhone and began recording it. Shortly after a 2nd orb materialized above the 1st. Once they were both visible they simultaneously got brighter and slightly larger.
At the time I was confused as to what I was looking at. There was a lake between the orbs and myself and the lights were reflecting off the water. The lower light suddenly disappeared and another orb appeared ABOVE the remaining one. At one point there were 3 visible orbs that from my angle appeared to be in a relatively straight line. I wondered if maybe they were flares but every orb held it’s place in the sky with no apparent descent or change. I tried at various times to zoom in but it would not hold focus. This went on for over 2min so I felt I was neglecting my group. I stopped the recording and returned to the fire pit, which was about 30’ away.
When I turned back around all of the orbs were gone. I still don’t know what I saw but during the incident the server came out and my friend asked if he knew what it was. His reply was, “I’ve been here for 10 yrs and have never seen anything like it”, which adds to the mystery. There were other vacations making some noise in the pool but we’re no airplanes in the sky and other than those talking it was silent.
Mysterious Loch Ness like sea creature washes up on South Georgia Beach
Mysterious Loch Ness like sea creature washes up on South Georgia Beach
A mysterious sea creature washed ashore in St. Simons Island and it has beachgoers scratching their heads.
Credit images: News4Jax and Jeff Warren.
Jeff Warren and his son were at Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge just north of St. Simons Island in Georgia Friday when they came upon the creature on a barrier island.
Warren thought it was a dead seal, but said when he got a closer look it resembled more of the Loch Ness monster.
Warren sent the photo to News4Jax and said the creature was about 4 to 5 feet long with two fins.
Credit images: News4Jax and Jeff Warren.
A local writer and novelist contacted News4Jax saying he believes the mysterious sea creature looks exactly like the legendary Altamaha-ha, a river monster of the Altamaha River located just west of Wolf Island and could be a survivor of the Mesozoic Era.
'It's a space WAR' Alien ‘battle’ near Area 51 baffles UFO hunters
'It's a space WAR' Alien ‘battle’ near Area 51 baffles UFO hunters
ALIEN hunters were left in a frenzy when they spotted what they believed to be a UFO ‘battle’ in the skies above a city in Nevada which is just a two hour driver from Area 51 – an alleged extraterrestrial hotspot.
On February 19, a driver in Henderson, Nevada, just a short drive from Las Vegas, was waiting in his car when he saw bright lights in the sky.
The unnamed motorist says the bright star-like lights in the footage, which was taken during broad daylight, started moving towards each other at a rapid speed as if they were attacking each other.
The witness said: "I was waiting in the car while my buddy went into the store. I noticed about 9 to 10 brights dots in the sky that looked like stars.
“The dots were in a line on approx 45 degree angle. All of a sudden they started to move upward on that same angle and it looked like they were attacking each other.”
'It's a space WAR' Alien ‘battle’ near Area 51 baffles UFO hunters
The man says that there were many bursts of energy and it lasted for about 20 seconds
To add more fuel to the conspiracy, the location where the footage was taken is just a two hour drive from Lincoln County, where Area 51 is based.
Area 51 is a top secret US military base which has been the centre of countless UFO theories over the years, including the infamous Roswell crash.
Some comments left beneath the video shows that some people are convinced this is a genuine UFO battle.
YOUTUBE
Alien ‘battle’ spotted near Area 51 by UFO hunters
GETTY
The incident took place near roswell
Rico Greem said: “Space war for the freedom of mankind.”
Corine Thomas said: “I believe this video, it's only a matter of time folks. The watchers are protecting us from the unruly greys.”
However, there were doubters of the authenticity, claiming that it was just reflection playing tricks on the mind.
Dan Aliyev wrote: “It’s reflections of cars turning.”
Carlos Urquides said: “It's the reflection of cars lights. If they were shooting lasers like that something would have clearly been destroyed. I believe in ufos but not this!”
The cameraman was reading at home when they zoomed in to capture the bright object flying near the jet in the skies over Lincoln, New Hampshire.
They said: "I was reading on my deck around 7 o'clock.
"I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I've always enjoyed seeing them fly through."
The mysterious object emerged from behind the plane's contrails
"This happens all the time, jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.
"I immediately thought I was witnessing some strange aircraft, possibly military but it was not a jet.
"I knew it wasn't a jet because it was actually right behind one. The jet it was chasing left a long contrail behind it, but the UFO did not.
"The UFO was gaining on a jet. No helicopter could do that. I was blown away and luckily got out my phone in time to take a video.”
The UFO appeared to 'chase' the jet, according to the witness who captured the footage
The footage was originally captured in 2016, but reemerged on YouTube this week where it has racked up thousands of views.
"I watched the object gaining on the jet for about 10 seconds when I lost them in the trees," the witness added.
"I was very excited and anxious. I felt I has witnessed something very hard to dismiss as a 'weather balloon' or some obvious type of aircraft.
"Shortly after the jet and object left my range of sight I saw three more jets and 1 helicopters going the same direction (in my opinion chasing the UFO)."
The object eventually 'overtook' the jet
But not all viewers were convinced the video was proof of alien visitors , with many thinking the object was just another plane.
One viewer commented: “Two planes flying at different height which causes the contrail.”
Another added: "It's two planes traveling at different altitudes, one creating a vapor trail."
The video displays the vehicle zooming through the sky at pace, leaving a thick contrail behind it.
But another object emerges from behind the cloud-like stream, sparking wild speculation online.
It then proceeds to follow the jet, before eventually overtaking it.
The footage then zooms in to show the subject as a round, peculiar-shaped craft.
NOWYOUKNOW
UFO? Bizarre footage shows the object following a plane
It was captured in the US in 2016, but has only been shared now.
A witness said: "I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them fly through.
"This happens all the time. jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.”
The clip was uploaded to YouTube channel NowYouKnow on Saturday and has already racked up over 16,000 hits.
And some users were convinced it is proof of alien life.
One comment read: “I am actually baffled. This looks legit, as to why — who knows.”
And another added: “No s*** the UFO is following a jet that's leaving a stream of chemtrail.”
The chemtrail theory is a conspiracy that aims to prove the condensation trails left in the sky are deliberately sprayed with harmful chemicals in order to control weather modification, radiation management and a number of other claims.
But other viewers believed there was a more reasonable explanation for the activity.
“This looks like an air refuelling plane,” someone claimed.
And others passed the video off for a number of other reasons, such as CGI or a possible military exercise.
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Researchers Find ‘Advanced’ 320,000-Year-Old Human Tools In Kenya
Researchers Find ‘Advanced’ 320,000-Year-Old Human Tools In Kenya
This evidence of early innovation pushes back the human evolutionary timeline, effectively rewriting history and everything we knew about our ancestors. This also means that complex human cultures are much older than previously thought.
An international group of scientists has discovered that more than 320,000 years ago, humans were much more developed than initially thought.
The new discovery proves how ancient people developed impressive social structures and technological innovations used color pigments and manufactured more sophisticated tools than previously thought.
Image Credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
As noted by the Smithsonian, these newly discovered activities approximately date to the oldest known fossil record of Homo sapiens and occur tens of thousands of years earlier than previous evidence has shown in eastern Africa.
Evidence for mankind’s ancient milestones originates from the Olorgesailie Basin in southern Kenya, where experts have excavated an archaeological site that offers an unprecedented record of early human life spanning more than a million years.
Archeologists say that many of the tools discovered on the site were crafted from obsidian – a hard, dark, glass-like volcanic rock.
In addition to the numerous tools, experts also found that ancient cultures used color pigments much sooner than previously thought.
The new findings are reported in three different studies published in the journal Science. The papers suggest that trading of different artifacts emerged during a period of tremendous environmental upheaval in the region when earthquakes ravaged the area and temperatures, and the climate, in general, fluctuated between wet and dry periods.
The Excavation site in Kenya.
Image credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
“This change to a very sophisticated set of behaviors that involved greater mental abilities and more complex social lives may have been the leading edge that distinguished our lineage from other early humans,” said Dr Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s human origins program in the United States, and author of one of the three studies.
Experts say that trading networks, early communication, and technological innovation helped ancient people survive by obtaining all necessary resources they needed through crafting or trading.
Dr. Potts notes that first evidence of human life in the Olorgesailie Basin dates back to around 1.2 million years ago.
There, for hundreds of thousands of years, people living in the region used large stone-cutting tools called handaxes. In addition to being used as tools, researchers have found evidence that some were also used as projectile weapons, while others were shaped into tools to craft and sculpt wood.
Then, in 2002, researchers discovered smaller, more carefully shaped tools in the Olorgesailie Basin.
Using isotopic dating, researchers found that the tools were incredibly old; between 320,000 and 305,000 years ago. These tools, researchers note, were carefully crafted and were more specialized than the all-purpose handaxes.
Furthermore, experts found that the smaller, more sophisticated handaxes were crafted from a wide range of obsidian, not found locally, but up to 90 kilometers away.
The Smithsonian team found small stone points (above) made of non-local obsidian at their Middle Stone Age sites.
Image credit: Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
In addition, experts discovered black and red rocks, evidence that the rocks had been ‘processed’ for use as a coloring material.
“We don’t know what the coloring was used on, but the coloring is often taken by archaeologists as the root of complex symbolic communication. Just as color is used today in clothing or flags to express identity, these pigments may have helped people communicate membership in alliances and maintain ties with distant groups.”
After integrating data from a variety of sources, researchers wanted to understand what may have driven such changes in early human behavior. Their findings suggest that the period when these changes appeared was one of changing landscapes and climate, and resources would have been extremely scarce.
Scientists discovered that geological, geochemical, paleobotanical and faunal evidence indicates that an extended period of climate instability affected the region, beginning approximately 360,000 years ago.
Here Are Five Ways Stephen Hawking Predicted The World Could End
Here Are Five Ways Stephen Hawking Predicted The World Could End
Not long ago, the great Stephen Hawking left us to travel among the stars.
The last great scientists on Earth died aged 76, and the news shocked the scientific world. But before leaving on his eternal trip, professor Hawking left us a lot to think about.
The Earth will disappear and become a massive ball of fire. By that time, 600 years from now, humanity must have colonized another planet. These warnings would not be given credit were it not because they came from famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, one of the voices that have spoken the most about the end of the world.
Hawking argued that the Alpha Centauri star system could be the most viable option for humanity, reason why he worked on the Breakthrough Starshot project, so future spacecraft could travel to this planet in the next 20 years using small spaceship that could travel at the speed of light.
Resumed, professor Hawking was THE scientist who made science more appealing and exciting to the general public. He Loved science, and science loved him back.
Dubbed as one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century, professor Hawking had become famous not only for his intelligence but also for his status as a celebrity, being one of the few people who had survived amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for so many years.
From the Big Bang theory to studies on black holes, his contributions to these fields will forever remain in the analogs of science, and his legacy will live on.
However, the British physicist was not only a great scientist, but he was also very concerned about our planet, our civilization, and the future that awaits us.
In this article, we take a look at five of the most worrying future predictions made by Hawking.
1. A deadly Virus destroying mankind
In 2001 Stephen Hawking warned that a virus would end the human race in this millennium. According to the researcher, “it will be a virus and not an atomic bomb” that will bring Earth’s population to its knees. However, the scientist offered a solution to the problem; establishing colonies in space.
2. Nuclear war and climate change
Stephen Hawking and other scientists announced in 2007 that Doomsday Clock was set at five minutes before midnight. Since 1947, the board of directors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists of the University of Chicago, of which Hawking is a member, manage to Doomsday clock as a symbol that represents how close we are to the end of civilization because of a nuclear war. In 2018 the clock was set two minutes to midnight. The failure of world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change. This is the clock’s closest approach to midnight, matching that of 1953.
On the effects of climate change, Hawking has warned that “the worst scenario for the Earth would be to become something like its sister planet, Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees and rain of sulfuric acid.”
3. Alien Invasion
Like many other scientists, Professor Hawking was convinced there’s life elsewhere in the universe. However, Professor Hawking believed that these beings might have exhausted resources and become space nomads in search of new planets and resources. “If aliens visited us, the result would be similar to when Columbus arrived in America, which was not very good for Native Americans.”
4. Artificial Intelligence
Like many other futurists and researchers, professor Stephen Hawking too warned of the dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
“Unless we learn to prepare for the potential risks and avoid them, Artificial Intelligence could be the worst event in the history of our civilization” the astrophysicist has stated on more than one occasion.
For Hawking, humans must be aware of the dangers posed by robots, identify them and prepare for their consequences in advance. In addition to Hawking, Elon Musk also spoke out about the potential dangers Artificial Intelligence poses for humans.
5. Humans, and our need for another world
The constant increase in the world population and the abusive consumption of resources and energy are too much for our planet to handle. Our civilization seems to be losing its grip on reality, and we are abusing our planet, bringing it to the limit.
Professor Hawking has warned that if we are to survive as a species, we must look for other planets other than Earth, and colonize them as soon as possible.
Hawking argued that the best option, perhaps, is the Alpha Centauri star system, which is the closest to our solar system.
The Breakthrough Starshot project, in which the physicist was involved, is precisely looking for the way to reach this system in 20 years through the development of spacecraft capable of traveling at the speed of light.
Check Out These Amazing Images Snapped By NASA’s $1 Billion Spacecraft Orbiting Jupiter
Check Out These Amazing Images Snapped By NASA’s $1 Billion Spacecraft Orbiting Jupiter
Jupiter is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating planets in our solar system.
Jupiter is huge. Mysterious. Colorful. Hypnotizing. And did I say it so big it doesn’t actually ‘orbit’ the sun?
Anyway, the gas giant has remained one of the most studied and revered planets since ancient times.
After the Sun, Jupiter is the largest celestial body in the solar system, with a mass almost two and a half times that of the other planets together (with a mass 318 times greater than that of Earth and three times greater than Saturn), besides being in terms of volume, 1317 times larger than Earth).
It is also the oldest planet in the solar system, being even older than the sun; this discovery was made by researchers from the University of Münster in Germany.
The Gas Giant has been explored on several occasions by spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. In late February 2007, Jupiter was visited by the New Horizons probe, which used Jupiter’s gravity to increase its speed and bend its trajectory en route to Pluto. The latest probe to visit the planet is Juno, which entered into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016.
Jupiter is the planet with the largest mass in the solar system: it is about 2.48 times the sum of the masses of all the other planets together.
Despite this, it is not the most massive planet known: more than a hundred extrasolar planets that have been discovered have masses similar or superior to Jupiter.
Jupiter also has the fastest rotation speed of the planets of the solar system: it rotates in less than ten hours on its axis.
Altogether, it is one heck of a planet.
The main satellites of Jupiter were discovered by Galileo Galilei on January 7, 1610, which is why they are called Galilean satellites.
They receive their names from Greek mythology although, in Galileo’s time, they were referred to by Roman numerals depending on their order of proximity to the planet.
The discovery of these satellites constituted a point of inflection in the already long dispute between those who supported the idea of a geocentric system, that is, with the Earth at the center of the universe, and the Copernican (or heliocentric system, that is, with the Sun at the center of the solar system), in which it was much easier to explain the movement and the very existence of Jupiter’s natural satellites.
And while I can continue writing about Jupiter the rest of the day, words can’t describe just how beautiful the largest planet in our solar system is.
Thankfully, images speak a thousand words so here we bring you some of the most fascinating images of Jupiter taken by the Juno Spacecraft.
Jupiter you SEXY beast! Image Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Uriel
Image Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Roman Tkachenko
This image shows Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles
A swirling white spot captured by Juno. Image Credit: NASA / MSSS / JPL / SwRI / Bjorn Jonsson
Bizarre footage appears to have captured the moment a UFO appears to chase a passenger jet through the sky. The incident was caught on camera by a baffled resident in the US who has recently uploaded the footage in a bid to get some answers.
The witness told the Mutual UFO Network : “I am told that military pilots train in the mountains around where I live and I’ve always enjoyed seeing them fly through. “This happens all the time. Jets and helicopters are a common sighting. So I naturally saw the jet and did a double take, because there was something following it.”
Deep-Space Radiation May Be Getting More Dangerous for Future Astronauts
Deep-Space Radiation May Be Getting More Dangerous for Future Astronauts
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
Photo of a coronal mass ejection, along with part of a solar filament, fired off by the sun on Feb. 24, 2015. When the sun is active, its magnetic field gains strength and extends farther out into space, helping deflect energetic cosmic rays away from the inner solar system.
Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA
Space radiation may be a bigger worry for voyaging astronauts than scientists had thought, at least in the near future, a new study suggests.
"The radiation dose rates from measurements obtained over the last four years exceeded trends from previous solar cycles by at least 30 percent, showing that the radiation environment is getting far more intense," study lead author Nathan Schwadron, a professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire's Space Science Center, said in a statement.
"These particle radiation conditions present important environmental factors for space travel and space weather, and must be carefully studied and accounted for in the planning and design of future missions to the moon, Mars, asteroids and beyond," Schwadron added. [How Radiation in Space Poses a Threat to Human Exploration (Infographic)]
Schwadron and his colleagues studied observations made by NASA'sLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(LRO), which has been circling the moon since 2009. Specifically, they looked at dose rates of galactic cosmic rays measured over the past four years by LRO's Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRATER).
Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) are super-energetic particles — mostly protons and atomic nuclei — that have been accelerated to tremendous speeds by distant and dramatic events, such as supernova explosions. GCRs can do damage to spacecraft electronics and, in large enough doses, can cause radiation sickness in astronauts, or longer-term problems such as cancer.
"We now know that the radiation environment of deep space that we could send human crews into at this point is quite different compared to that of previous crewed missions to the moon," Schwadron said, referring to NASA's Apollo missions, which landed six crews on the lunar surface between July 1969 and December 1972.
The rise in GCR levels is related to a prolonged stretch of low solar activity, which ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle. During active phases, the sun's magnetic field spreads throughout the solar system more extensively (by the flow of charged particles known as the solar wind), and it deflects more incoming GCRs.
But an active sun poses its own problems. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections — powerful blasts that send huge clouds of superheated plasma rocketing out into space at millions of miles per hour — can also raise radiation levels significantly.
And big solar outbursts aren't limited to active periods in the solar cycle. Indeed, a series of solar outbursts in September 2017 raised deep-space radiation levels significantly, the researchers said.
The new study has been accepted for publication in the journal Space Weather.
The putative oceans on Mars may have been aided by an unlikely ally: volcanoes.
A depiction of how oceans on Mars might have looked like.
Image credits: Kevin McGill / Flickr.
The saga of Martian oceans — and if they truly existed or not — continues with a new episode. A team of geophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that volcanoes may have helped pave the way for liquid water, by raising temperatures.
“Volcanoes may be important in creating the conditions for Mars to be wet,” said Michael Manga, a UC Berkeley professor of earth and planetary science and senior author of a paper appearing in Nature this week and posted online March 19.
While there is significant evidence that Mars once had oceans of liquid water, not everybody is convinced of their existence. The main argument against this existence is that… we don’t see them today. The estimated mass of the oceans just doesn’t fit with the how much water could be hidden today as permafrost underground and how much could have escaped into space. In other words, if Mars once had oceans, we should still see some water.
But Manga and his colleagues developed a new model which would help explain this disparity. They propose that the first ocean on the Red Planet (called Arabia) formed at about the same time as the planet’s largest volcanic feature, Tharsis, or even a bit sooner — instead of after it, as previous models suggested.
“The assumption was that Tharsis formed quickly and early, rather than gradually, and that the oceans came later,” Manga said. “We’re saying that the oceans predate and accompany the lava outpourings that made Tharsis.”
In particular, because Tharsis was smaller in its earlier days, it didn’t distort the seabed as much, meaning that the oceans were much shallower than previously assumed. This theory can also explain another counterargument to Martian oceans: the seashore problem. The proposed seashores are highly irregular, varying in height by up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles), whereas on Earth seashores are largely at the same level (sea level).
If oceans were formed in the initial stages of Tharsis’ development, the volcano would have significantly depressed the land and deformed the shoreline, which would help explain the irregularity.
“These shorelines could have been emplaced by a large body of liquid water that existed before and during the emplacement of Tharsis, instead of afterwards,” said first author Robert Citron, a UC Berkeley graduate student.
Lastly, this model also proposes that Tharsis spewed gases into the atmosphere that created a global warming or greenhouse effect, which favored the formation of liquid water. However, more studies will be needed to confirm this theory.
The study has not been peer-reviewed, but Citron will present a paper about the new analysis on March 20 at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science conference in Texas.
Without an atmosphere to protect it, the Moon is under constant assault from meteorites and asteroids, hitting the satellite and leaving behind a horde of craters. Using a novel AI-based technique, a team of researchers has developed a new way to identify and count these craters.
An artificially colored mosaic constructed from a series of 53 images taken by the Galileo Spacecraft. Can you see the craters?
“When it comes to counting craters on the moon, it’s a pretty archaic method,” says Mohamad Ali-Dib, a postdoctoral fellow in the Centre for Planetary Sciences (CPS).
Indeed, while astronomy has benefitted from the automation of many processes, crater counting had lagged behind — but not anymore.
“Basically we need to manually look at an image, locate and count the craters and then calculate how large they are based off the size of the image. Here we’ve developed a technique from artificial intelligence that can automate this entire process that saves significant time and effort.”
Ali-Dib wasn’t the first to come up with this idea. Several projects have attempted to develop algorithms for the detection of lunar craters, but they performed rather poorly. However, the new algorithm, which was trained on a large dataset covering two-thirds of the moon, performed much better. It was so good at understanding the general shape and characteristics of a crater that it was even able to detect craters on other bodies, such as Mercury.
“It’s the first time we have an algorithm that can detect craters really well for not only parts of the moon, but also areas of Mercury,” says Ali-Dib, who developed the technique along with Ari Silburt, Chenchong Charles Zhu, and a group of researchers at CPS and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA).
They fed 90,000 images of the moon’s surface into an artificial neural network (ANN). ANNs mimic the vast network of neurons in a brain, simulating the biological learning process. After the learning process, the neural network was able to not only identify but also categorize craters larger than five kilometers. The team believes that with further “training” it will also be able to zoom in on smaller craters.
Some lunar craters last for billions of years.
Image credits: NASA.
Since the moon also doesn’t have tectonics or strong erosion, the craters can remain visible for extremely long periods of time, with Ali-Dib’s team finding craters as old as four billion years. However, this is also the main drawback of the algorithm: it requires an atmosphere-less body, without erosion, and clearly visible craters.
Journal Reference: Ari Silburt et al. Lunar Crater Identification via Deep Learning. arxiv.org/abs/1803.02192
It was 53 years ago when a man walked in space for the first time, and he wasn’t American.
On March 18, 1965, the USSR took a big lead in the space race against the U.S. when cosmonaut Alexey Leonov left his spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, to enter into history as taking the first-ever spacewalk. Moments later, his life was in danger.
“My suit was becoming deformed, my hands had slipped out of the gloves, my feet came out of the boots,” Leonov told the BBC in 2014. “The suit felt loose around my body. I had to do something.”
The problem was the lack of atmospheric pressure in space causing his suit to inflate. Tethered to the spacecraft and with a suit too big to make it through the hatch, Leonov acted quickly by releasing oxygen from his suit to relieve the pressure.
He did make his way back into the capsule but the small explosive that opened the hatch had now caused it to rotate. This also caused a rise in oxygen making the cabin flammable.
It didn’t stop there for Leonov. He and his pilot, Pavel Belyayev, had to wait several hours before they could fire the retro-rockets to return to Earth. They found out quickly that the automated rockets did not work so they had to control the rockets manually. A miscalculation of how long to fire the rockets could either bounce them right back into space or crash into the ground.
The cosmonaunts did end up landing safely in Siberia.
The U.S. and NASA also ramped up the space program with multiple spaceflights in 1965. The Apollo and Gemini flights continued to make progress leading to the moon landing on Nov. 19, 1969.
Still, as the first person to see the Earth from 500km above, Leonov made an impact on history. What he saw on his trip also made an impact on him.
“My feeling was that I was a grain of sand,” he said. “You just can’t comprehend it. Only out there can you feel the greatness, the huge size of all that surrounds us.”
Steve looks like a neon purplish or green strip across the night sky, and it’s visible in Canada, though it’s not a streak of the aurora borealis. When Steve appears, it’s moving from east to West, and might be visible anywhere from Ontario to Alaska. It travels at about 4 miles per second, but appears static from the ground, and is routinely spotted at latitudes far further south than traditional northern lights.
Scientists identified the arc-shaped ribbon as an extremely hot (up to 10,000 degrees F), 16-mile thick river of ionized gas, about 200 miles above the earth’s surface. But much about Steve remains mysterious, even following the publication of the new study led by Elizabeth MacDonald, a space physicist at NASA. The researchers know that Steve is similar to a subauroral ion drift (SAID), except they are normally invisible to the naked eye.
We see you, Steve.(Courtesy Paul Zizka)
The Alberta Aurora Chasers, a group of photographers who trade tips and images of the famed northern lights, had been capturing images of the gorgeous arc for years. According to the New York Times, the group initially thought the sightings of what would become Steve, which is whitish to the naked eye, might be condensation trails from planes. After manipulating the settings on their cameras, however, they realized that the streaks were self-illuminated and multihued.
There he goes again. (Courtesy Catalin Tapardel)
In 2016, they met up with some astronomy professors at the University of Calgary at a bar and shared their photos, hoping to find out what caused the mysterious stroke of light. No one had an certain answer, but Eric Donovan, a professor of physics and astronomy, took an interest in the question. He turned to the European Space Agency and their Swarm satellites to begin collecting data.
In the meantime, the arc needed to be called something. Chris Ratzlaff, who runs the Alberta Aurora Chasers’ Facebook page, chose “Steve,” a name pulled from a 2006 children’s movie, Over the Hedge, in which a gang of animals give the random name to an unknown, slightly frightening being they can’t see.
The nickname was far humbler than the titles of most atmospheric optical phenomena, which have titles like Rayleigh scattering, crepuscular ray, or lunar corona, but “Steve” was meant to be temporary. And yet, it stuck. In honor of its origins, scientists have decided to keep the name, but have retroactively made it an acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.
A double Steve night?(Courtesy Paul Zizka)
At a talk last year in Banff, Alberta, Donovan told the audience that he still occasionally turned to Ratzlaff’s team of citizen scientists for input as he investigated Steve. Once, when one of Donovan’s colleagues saw something unusual in his data, Donovan explained, “I did something right then and there that I never thought I’d do as part of my professional work.” He logged onto Facebook and typed in: “Did anyone see Steve last night?”
Pretty in pink.
(Courtesy Paul Zizka)
Subtle.
(Courtesy Philip Granrud)
NASA also asked the Chasers and other amateurs for assistance, and named them as co-authors of the new paper. Now NASA has opened their call for images to the general public:
Seen STEVE? Glowing in purple & green colors, a new celestial phenomenon, known as STEVE, is caused by charged particles from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetic field. Discover how you can help us study these dancing lights by sending your pictures: http://go.nasa.gov/2phTVT5
Capturing Steve in an image is said to be easier than shooting the lights of the aurora borealis, which are more active. Steve will sit still for up to 20 minutes, a local photographer in Banff, Alberta, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
A Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE) photographed near Regina on the night of July 24, 2016 (Notanee Bourassa)
Notanee Bourassa was a teenager in a run-down part of Regina. His father was dying of lung cancer. School and home were trouble alike. Then he tilted back his neck.
“The Northern Lights allowed me to escape all of that and to realize there’s more to life than where you are right now, and to survive,” he says, 30 years later. In his first sighting, he says bands of light on both sides of the sky appeared to meet in a continuous arc. “The aurora ribbons had actually joined, and I was underneath the ribbons in a back alley because it’s the darkest place I could find. I was hooked.”
Bourassa is an everyday citizen who helped NASA and other scientists identify for the first time a light display in thesky, on which they published a journal article in Science Advances. The purple and green streaks resemble an aurora borealis, but scientists say it’s a different phenomenon that “may be an extraordinary puzzle piece” in understanding Earth’s magnetic fields. Bourassa photographed the light and says he called it “Steve,” a name from an animated movie, for which scientists later matched an acronym: Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.
Researchers across North America and in the United Kingdom are now studying STEVEs; NASA has called for more citizens to help collect data on them; the discovery could be important for future aircrafts, and one of the catalysts behind the research was a 45-year-old father with a camera and a celestial coping mechanism.
For the first time, we have a better understanding of a mysterious phenomenon in the sky called STEVE, thanks to citizen scientist and satellite views. These new findings help us learn how Earth interacts with charged particles in space: https://go.nasa.gov/2FA0Elm
“The great magician out in the cosmos is making Northern Lights for us,” says Bourassa, who now works as a technical assistant for Sask Tel and, in recent years, has sought out the Lights one to four times per week. “That’s what keeps me going out there—just to get a feeling of, there’s something more to our lives than going to work and going to Walmart.”
On July 24, 2016, around 11 p.m., Bourassa drove to a wheat field 21 km from Regina to photograph the sky, bringing his five- and seven-year-old children because it was not a school night. From other “aurora chasers,” he had heard rumours of an unidentifiable glow, which they inaccurately called a proton arc, and which can last from 20 minutes to one hour.
“As it started to rain a little bit, out of the corner of my peripheral vision on the left, I had noticed there was a streak in the sky,” Bourassa recalls of the summer night. He rushed to change the settings on his camera and reposition it on his tripod on the gravel road. “I was thrilled and a lit bit panicked because I wanted to get good data.”
Bourassa had seen the Dreamworks movie, Over the Hedge, in which a group of animals one day discovers a man-made formation of shrubbery. Lacking a word for the hedge, a squirrel proposes they call it “Steve,” and thus his friends start worshipping “oh great and powerful Steve.” When Bourassa started talking about his sighting with other aurora enthusiasts on Facebook, he applied the name to what scientists later identified as a subauroral ion drift.
Bourassa tweeted about the light he’d seen, which was also captured by imaging equipment of the University of Calgary and the University of California, Berkeley, and later by other institutions including Athabasca University. Bourassa says he connected on Twitter with a heliophysicist, and soon, a scientist named Elizabeth MacDonald from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, became the lead author on the paper published in March, along with 15 other authors based in Canada, the United States and Britain.
“Steve” stuck, as one American scientist realized the name could appropriately stand for: Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (since the initials came before the words, they call it a “back-ronym”).
A traditional aurora borealis is a product of electrically-charged particles interacting with oxygen that get discharged as light,with green and red colours occurring depending on the pressure and violet caused by nitrogen. A STEVE is a similar process but travels on different magnetic field lines, closer to Earth.
The children of photographer Notanee Bourassa gaze at a STEVE, or “Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement” near Regina on the night of July 24, 2016. (Notanee Bourassa)
“It seems to be a channel of very hot air, very high up, that gets hot enough that it starts to glow,” explains Martin Connors, a physics professor at Athabasca University and an author of the recent journal article on STEVEs. “When you find a channel of gas as hot as the surface as the sun, and it’s 100 km above our heads, you kind of want to know why.”
An aurora borealis appears in broad bands of light sometimes called “curtains,” but a STEVE comes with skinny off-shoots. “It seems to have these green fingers associated with it,” says Connors. “To me those are very mysterious.”
Understanding this phenomenon could be still more important if future aircrafts fly at altitudes where STEVEs appear, Connors says. “If you’re suddenly in a channel of really hot gas, you’d want to be prepared for that.”
Climate change is highly unlikely to be a cause of STEVEs, Connors says. Rather, he suspects they are being seen every few weeks because technology is improving, enabling even iPhones to capture them—“less climate change than camera change,” he says.
Bourassa’s sightings reinforce the value of citizen science and also reinforce memories of his father, who he watched wither from a 230-pound man to a skeletal figure with a tube draining his lung. He died after two and a half years of severe illness when Bourassa was 15.
“I hadn’t really told him that I was watching the Northern Lights in the alleyway,” Bourassa admits. The Lights are miraculous, he says, for when a person is grieving, “it doesn’t make sense to a rational-thinking person, but it seems like they, for you, are dancing.”
Pendant plusieurs minutes, un objet, laissant derrière lui une longue traînée brune, a été visible dans le ciel au-dessus de Littau, dans le canton de Lucerne, en Suisse. Un habitant local a a pu le filmer.
Cet OVNI a été observé le mercredi 14 mars 2018 par une jeune femme. C'était juste avant 19h00. Elle se trouvait dans sa cuisine et regardait par la fenêtre quand elle a vu un objet étrange dans le ciel. Immédiatement, elle a pris son appareil photo Sony, elle a zoomé et a photographié ce spectacle inhabituel.
Elle raconte : « L'objet avec cette longue traînée se trouvait dans le ciel. Il n'a pas bougé pendant deux ou trois minutes.»
Puis l'objet s'est soudainement « retourné vers la droite et a disparu », se souvient le témoin.
Quelques minutes plus tard, le spectacle s'est répété. Encore une fois, elle a vu cet objet inconnu dans le ciel, toujours avec cette traînée. « Mais cette fois le phénomène n'a pas duré aussi longtemps que la première fois. »
Le témoin vit au Benneneggstrasse à Littau. L'objet inconnu qu'elle avait vu allait en direction de Neuenkirch. « Je n'ai aucune idée de la distance. »
La femme veut maintenant savoir ce qu'elle a vu dans le ciel. Cependant, elle précise qu'elle ne croit pas aux OVNI pilotés par des extraterrestres. « Ma première pensée était que ça aurait pu être une météorite. » Seulement, pourquoi cette chose est-elle restée immobile dans le ciel ?
Sur demande, la société Skyguide a été interrogé sur l'origine de cet OVNI. Le porte-parole Vladi Barrosa, qui a vu les images, s'est exprimé : « Le terme technique est OVNI. Donc jusqu'à ce que nous en savons plus, on peut dire que c'est un objet volant non identifié. »
Skyguide continue d'investiguer pour clarifier ce qui s'est passé.
« Nous recevons toujours de telles photos. En général, nous pouvons répondre à ce qu'il y a dessus. Si nous avons la date et l'heure de la journée, nous pouvons le trouver sur des images radar. »
En règle générale, il s'agit simplement d'avions normaux.
« Même dans ce cas, nous allons probablement découvrir de quoi il s'agissait», conclut Barrosa.
Newly declassified video and audio show U.S. Navy pilots’ apparent sighting of alien craft near East Coast. #Tucker
FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one network in cable, FNC has been the most watched television news channel for more than 15 years and according to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll, is the most trusted television news source in the country. Owned by 21st Century Fox, FNC is available in more than 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape, routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre.
Leaked WikiLeaks Cable Confirms Alien Life On Other Planets
Leaked WikiLeaks Cable Confirms Alien Life On Other Planets
“…He asserted the existence of life on other planets, caveating this by noting that we should focus on solving our problems on Earth. End Summary…”
A cable released by Wikileaks seems to have confirmed what millions of people around the globe believe for decades: we are not the only “intelligent” lifeforms in the universe.
WikiLeaks is an international non-profit media organization, which publishes anonymous reports and leaked documents with sensitive content of public interest on its website, preserving the anonymity of its sources.
The site was launched in December 2006, although its activity began in July 2007-2008.
Since then its database has grown steadily to accumulate 1.2 million documents.
Its creator is Julian Assange and is managed by The Sunshine Press.
The website itself is a treasure-trove of ‘secret’ or better said sensitive information, and unsurprisingly, among the 1.2 million leaked documents posted on Wikileaks, we find a couple for them that directly speak about extraterrestrial life.
A document titled: “MAYOR MEETS AMBASSADOR, CONFIRMS EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE” seems to confirm what many of us have known for decades, there is life on other planets in the universe.
The leaked document was posted in January of 2010 and was originally classified as ‘Confidential’ according to Wikileaks.
The document reads:
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d)
(C) Summary: In a platitude-ridden meeting, Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev said upcoming elections would be free and fair, that contributions to the Roghun Dam were voluntary, and that the losses suffered by the United States in Afghanistan were felt by Tajiks as their own. Ubaidulloev asked for help in getting Tajik students admitted to Harvard University but effectively declined to help find a new location for an American Corner in Dushanbe. He asserted the existence of life on other planets, caveating this by noting that we should focus on solving our problems on Earth. End Summary.
AFGHANISTAN
(SBU) On January 13 Ambassador called on Dushanbe Mayor and Chairman of the upper house of Parliament Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev at his parliamentary office. The Mayor began the meeting with a lengthy discourse on Afghanistan, thanking the United States for its contributions and sacrifices there, and saying that U.S. activities there were very important “as we enter the third millennium and the 21st century.” Ubaidulloev thought the main task there was to build a sense of national identity among ethnically disparate groups, and said the United States was an example for this. He noted that “war is very dangerous”, and said, “we know there is life on other planets, but we must make peace here first.”
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China plans to develop a multipurpose, reusable space plane
China plans to develop a multipurpose, reusable space plane
by Staff Writers Beijing (XNA)
illustration only
China is developing its homegrown reusable space plane, which observers said could be used to attack foreign aircraft, space stations and even intercept missiles if used for military purposes.
The reusable spacecraft can transport people or payloads in orbit from any airport and return to earth, CCTV reported.
Unlike rockets which have to be recycled, the space plane will revolutionize space transportation, Zhang Hongwen, president of the Third Academy of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) and a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), told CCTV.
Although still at an early stage of research, the space plane will be capable of sending tourists to space, launching satellites and supplying the space station, providing emergency space rescue and offering cheap and timely space launching services, Zhang said.
China will launch a reusable spaceplane in 2020
"It could also be used as a military space plane equipped with detection and attack devices against foreign spacecraft, satellites and space stations," Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times.
Song said that the plane could also intercept ballistic missiles and conduct precision strikes on ground targets.
The CCTV report showed that the space plane is composed of two planes, with the larger aircraft acting as a carrier aircraft.
A military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times that the core technology of the larger aircraft is an air-breathing rocket engine using hydrogen fuel.
Such an engine could liquefy oxygen, and then fuel the aircraft with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen while flying in the atmosphere. The liquid fuel could accelerate the flight in space, with speeds potentially reaching 22 times the speed of sound, the expert said.
The larger aircraft, once used as a military aircraft, will be difficult to be intercepted by current anti-missile systems, he added.
The project, codenamed "Tengyun Project," was first revealed in 2016, and according to the plan, the plane will conduct its first test flight in 2030, said Liu Shiquan, vice president of CASIC, the Science and Technology Daily reported in December 2016.
China has made “significant progress” in building a spacecraft that can take off and land using an airstrip the way planes do, a development that one expert ...
In the CCTV report, Zhang also said that China is currently testing a near-space solar drone capable of providing a network and communications not subjected to regional restrictions, and assist in remote sensing images and meteorological observation.
"The solar drone is closer to the ground compared with satellites, which could better offer monitoring and communications services," Zhang was quoted as saying.
The solar drone will be put into use as early as the end of this year, CCTV reported.
The evidence that aliens exist has been slowly mounting for decades and 2017 marks the most convincing year yet for the belief that life must exist beyond our planet.
And believing in the extraterrestrial is no longer reserved for conspiracy theorists in tinfoil hats. Nearly half of humanity believes aliens are out there, according to a recent study, and in June, the European Space Agency signed off on a $668 million mission that will hunt for other life forms 932,000 miles into space. Meanwhile, scientists continue to be baffled by a bunch of mysterious signals that keep emanating from faraway galaxies.
Here are five stories that prove it’s only a matter of time before we meet our celestial neighbors.
Scientists have long presumed that if we’re going to find life on other planets, we’re going to find them in the “Goldilocks zone” — spots throughout the universe where conditions are just right for water to exist.
The intergalactic search for our neighbors grew more promising in 2017 with dozens more “super-Earth” discoveries.
And even though we don’t yet have the technology to reach these planets, 2017’s “super-Earths” have included:
Wolf 1061c: Discovered in January, located 14 light years away
LHS 1140b: Discovered in April, located 40 light years away
Ross 128b: Discovered in November, located 11 light years away
K2-18b: Discovered in December, located 111 light years away
In June, NASA’s Kepler telescope found 10 “Goldilocks-zone” planets and in October, the telescope found 20 more “hiding in plain sight.”
“Are we alone?” Kepler scientist Mario Perez asked at a news conference following NASA’s June discovery. “Maybe Kepler today has told us indirectly, although we need confirmation, that we are probably not alone.”
2. Reported UFO sightings are at their highest ever
Sam Manafort, who’s studying Human Factors and Applied Cognition at George Mason University, crunched numbers from the National UFO Reporting Center. In his report, he found that since the first recorded UFO flew over Portugal in 1905, there have been at least 104,947 sightings.
But the number of yearly sightings has spiked dramatically from about 5,000 in 1980 to about 45,000 in 2010. In the US alone, there are 2,500 sightings per 10 million people — something Manafort attributes to the fact that most of the US has access to the internet.
Most of the sightings have come from the West and Northwest, an area that lines up with America’s “UFO highway” — a latitude line across the US that a pair of sibling alien hunters believes is an entrance for extraterrestrial spacecraft.
The duo, whose book “37th Parallel” is being made into a movie, state that during years-long travels across the US, the most bizarre paranormal phenomenon took place along the 37th latitude line.
This line stretches from California through Nevada, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and across to Virginia.
3. Life may already be hanging out in our own solar system
Dubbed Trans-Neptunian objects, these celestial bodies might benefit from tidal heating. This means that these icy planets have moons with enough gravitational pull to create energy beneath the planet’s surface — which generates heat and allows a sub-surface ocean to exist. The findings were published in Icarus.
“These objects need to be considered as potential reservoirs of water and life,” Prabal Saxena of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said in a press release. “If our study is correct, we now may have more places in our solar system that possess some of the critical elements for extraterrestrial life.”
The space agency was looking to hire a planetary protection officer — someone in charge of making sure that spacecraft and astronauts don’t contaminate other worlds and don’t bring back anything that could contaminate our own.
“NASA maintains policies for planetary protection applicable to all space flight missions that may intentionally or unintentionally carry Earth organisms and organic constituents to the planets or other solar system bodies and any mission employing spacecraft, which are intended to return to Earth and its biosphere with samples from extraterrestrial targets of exploration,” the job description stated.
The job, which pays between $124,406 and $187,000, is only one of two full-time posts in the world. It became available after Catherine Conley, the former planetary protection officer, accepted a different position inside NASA.
NASA first created the position following the signing of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 — a UN-approved agreement that outlines international space law.
The application closed Aug. 14 and there’s been no update on who landed the extraterrestrial gig.
In November, a NASA scientist at Goddard Institute For Space Studies said he believes we’ll find alien life within the next 20 years.
In December, the Pentagon released footage of Navy pilots seemingly coming into contact with UFOs. The eerie clip from 2004 shows a glowing white orb rotating while the F/A-18F fighter jet pilots try to figure out if what they’re looking at is a drone or something more… universal.
The footage, which was taken off the coast of California, was released after the Pentagon acknowledged the existence of the Defense Department’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. This program, which costs $22 millionbetween 2008 and 2012, was set up to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects. Some officials have said that parts of the program have continued.
“It was a real object, it exists and I saw it,” Cmdr. David Fravor, one of the pilots who saw the UFO, told the Washington Post. Fravor said the object resembled a white Tic Tac and was “something not from the earth.”
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Phoenix Lights: What caused one of the world's largest UFO sightings?
Phoenix Lights: What caused one of the world's largest UFO sightings?
ByMatthew Dunn| news.com.au
( Credit: Fox 10 Phoenix )
It has been 21 years to the day since a mass UFO sighting occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, with the mystery still unsolved.
On March 13, 1997, thousands of people reported a string of bright lights in a triangular formation flying in the sky like a UFO.
Dr. Lynne Kitei witnessed the event and said she still doesn’t know what she saw that day.
“It was a mile-wide formation of these orbs and I caught them head-on turning into a V,” she told 12 News.
The US air force identified the lights as flares dropped by an A-10 Warthog aircraft performing training exercises at the Barry Goldwater Range in southwest Arizona.
It’s a nice theory, but Dr Kitei doesn’t feel so sure it’s true.
“How can flares keep a formation, traverse the entire state and beyond for hours in a rock-solid V?” she said.
Another person who claims to have seen the lights was Hollywood actor Kurt Russell.
The Escape from LA star said he was traveling in a private plane into Phoenix when he spotted the phenomenon, quickly reporting it to the control tower at the airport.
“I’m going to declare it’s unidentified, it’s flying and it’s six objects,” he recounted during an appearance on The One Show.
Despite the many witnesses claiming the lights were from a UFO, aviation experts said the flare explanation does hold merit.
Former F-16 pilot Ty Groh said flares in the sky act like hot-air balloons and go where the breeze takes them, with a strong gust able to propel all of the flares at the same time at a uniform distance.
He added that extremely bright objects, like flares, can appear closer than they are in reality when dropped at a distance.
“You’ll be looking at airliners that look like they’re 10 miles (16km) away and they’re 400 miles (643) away,” he told 12 News.
Despite the air force’s explanation, the Phoenix Lights are still a mystery.
Aliens Can Destroy Us All With An Email, According To Scientists
Aliens Can Destroy Us All With An Email, According To Scientists
So far as we can tell at the moment, we’re alone in the galaxy. Or at least far enough away from other civilizations that we can’t find them. Apparently, they can’t find us, either… yet. That’s not to say alien’s don’t exist. It’s just that interstellar travel is a very, very difficult problem to defeat, so, practically speaking, if aliens wanted to show up to invade, it would be expensive. Aliens probably have budgets, too, after all.
Fortunately for science fiction writers who don’t want to get quagmired in interplanetary numbers crunching, two scientists have pointed out that there are much cheaper and more effective ways for aliens to kill us all, either by accident or design. John Learned, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii, and Michael Hippke, a self-described gentleman scientist, have a not-entirely-serious, but still pretty serious, paper about how even aliens making contact with us could wipe out humanity. To start with, any message aliens sent us would necessarily be in some form of computer code, and that computer code could be anything, including a virus that spreads across the world before we can stop it and, say, launches all our nuclear missiles, or just shuts down every computer it finds, grinding the entire planet to a halt. It might not even be intentional, they point out, as aliens have no way of knowing what our computer systems are like.
If that weren’t enough, they point out that any message from aliens would necessarily need a computer to understand it, and that there is no “perfect prison” for locking down computer code. Some well-meaning Search for Extra-Terrestrial Institute (SETI) guy could just be doing his job. He might not even have time to realize he’s opened an alien code and we’re all boned.
The good news is the scientists do agree that the risk of a malicious contact is extremely low, they’re just pointing out that it’s not zero, and that we should think about this before firing up those radio telescopes.
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The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy
The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy
Astronomers have spotted a strange mess of objects whirling around a distant star. Scientists who search for extraterrestrial civilizations are scrambling to get a closer look.
In the Northern hemisphere’s sky, hovering above the Milky Way, there are two constellations—Cygnus the swan, her wings outstretched in full flight, and Lyra, the harp that accompanied poetry in ancient Greece, from which we take our word “lyric.”
Between these constellations sits an unusual star, invisible to the naked eye, but visible to the Kepler Space Telescope, which stared at it for more than four years, beginning in 2009.
“We’d never seen anything like this star,” says Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale. “It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.”
Kepler was looking for tiny dips in the light emitted by this star. Indeed, it was looking for these dips in more than 150,000 stars, simultaneously, because these dips are often shadows cast by transiting planets. Especially when they repeat, periodically, as you’d expect if they were caused by orbiting objects.
The Kepler Space Telescope collected a great deal of light from all of those stars it watched. So much light that Kepler’s science team couldn’t process it all with algorithms. They needed the human eye, and human cognition, which remains unsurpassed in certain sorts of pattern recognition. Kepler’s astronomers decided to found Planet Hunters, a program that asked “citizen scientists” to examine light patterns emitted by the stars, from the comfort of their own homes.
In 2011, several citizen scientists flagged one particular star as “interesting” and “bizarre.” The star was emitting a light pattern that looked stranger than any of the others Kepler was watching.
The light pattern suggests there is a big mess of matter circling the star, in tight formation. That would be expected if the star were young. When our solar system first formed, four and a half billion years ago, a messy disk of dust and debris surrounded the sun, before gravity organized it into planets, and rings of rock and ice.
But this unusual star isn’t young. If it were young, it would be surrounded by dust that would give off extra infrared light. There doesn’t seem to be an excess of infrared light around this star.
It appears to be mature.
And yet, there is this mess of objects circling it. A mess big enough to block a substantial number of photons that would have otherwise beamed into the tube of the Kepler Space Telescope. If blind nature deposited this mess around the star, it must have done so recently. Otherwise, it would be gone by now. Gravity would have consolidated it, or it would have been sucked into the star and swallowed, after a brief fiery splash.
Boyajian, the Yale Postdoc who oversees Planet Hunters, recently published a paper describing the star’s bizarre light pattern. Several of the citizen scientists are named as co-authors. The paper explores a number of scenarios that might explain the pattern—instrument defects; the shrapnel from an asteroid belt pileup; an impact of planetary scale, like the one that created our moon.
The paper finds each explanation wanting, save for one. If another star had passed through the unusual star’s system, it could have yanked a sea of comets inward. Provided there were enough of them, the comets could have made the dimming pattern.
But that would be an extraordinary coincidence, if that happened so recently, only a few millennia before humans developed the tech to loft a telescope into space. That’s a narrow band of time, cosmically speaking.
And yet, the explanation has to be rare or coincidental. After all, this light pattern doesn’t show up anywhere else, across 150,000 stars. We know that somethingstrange is going on out there.
When I spoke to Boyajian on the phone, she explained that her recent paper only reviews “natural” scenarios. “But,” she said, there were “other scenarios” she was considering.
Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.
“When [Boyajian] showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” Wright told me. “Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”
Boyajian is now working with Wright and Andrew Siemion, the Director of the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. The three of them are writing up a proposal. They want to point a massive radio dish at the unusual star, to see if it emits radio waves at frequencies associated with technological activity.
If they see a sizable amount of radio waves, they’ll follow up with the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, which may be able to say whether the radio waves were emitted by a technological source, like those that waft out into the universe from Earth’s network of radio stations.
Assuming all goes well, the first observation would take place in January, with the follow-up coming next fall. If things go really well, the follow-up could happen sooner. “If we saw something exciting, we could ask the director for special allotted time on the VLA,” Wright told me. “And in that case, we’d be asking to go on right away.”
In the meantime, Boyajian, Siemion, Wright, the citizen scientists, and the rest of us, will have to content ourselves with longing looks at the sky, aimed between the swan and the lyre, where maybe, just maybe, someone is looking back, and seeing the sun dim ever so slightly, every 365 days.
Mysterieuze ijscirkels ontdekt in Slovenië. Lokale bewoners staan voor een raadsel
Mysterieuze ijscirkels ontdekt in Slovenië. Lokale bewoners staan voor een raadsel
Op het Meer van Bled in Slovenië zijn mysterieuze ijscirkels ontstaan. Schrijver en fotograaf Ian Middleton laat weten dat hij zoiets nog nooit eerder had gezien.
Ook veel andere Slovenen die hij sprak hadden de perfect concentrische cirkels nog nooit gezien. Bijna niemand had er een verklaring voor.
IJscirkels beperken zich niet alleen tot het Meer van Bled. In 2009 werden namelijk vanuit het internationale ruimtestation ISS reusachtige ijscirkels gespot op het Baikalmeer in Siberië.
Methaan
IJscirkels (Ian Middleton)
De Russische overheid heeft door de jaren heen vele gevallen van ijscirkels gedocumenteerd.
Experts claimen dat ze het gevolg zijn van de uitstoot van methaan, maar bevindt zich methaan in de bodem onder het Meer van Bled?
De priester van de kerk op het Meer van Bled zei dat de cirkels te maken hebben met de manier waarop het meer bevriest. Als het water bevriest ontstaan er eerst kleine cirkels, legde hij uit.
Buitenaards bezoek
Er zijn ook mensen die beweren dat het fenomeen te maken heeft met buitenaards bezoek. In Engeland verschijnen graacirkels vaak bij oude en mysterieuze monumenten zoals Stonehenge of Avebury.
Velen suggereren dat deze cirkels zijn achtergelaten als boodschap aan andere bezoekers uit de ruimte.
Het Meer van Bled kan volgens Middleton ook worden gezien als mysterieuze plek omdat het een rijke folkloristische geschiedenis kent.
UFO'S VEROORZAKEN ONGELUK SKILIFT IN GEORGIE ( VIDEO ) - UPDATE
UFO'S VEROORZAKEN ONGELUK SKILIFT IN GEORGIE( VIDEO ) - UPDATE
Afgelopen vrijdag vond er een bizar ongeluk plaats met een skilift in het wintersportgebied Gudauri in Georgië.
De beelden gingen de wereld rond, maar wat bijna niemand zag, is dat er net voor het ongeluk enkele grote UFO's boven de piste verschenen.
Update: 19 maart 2018
In het originele artikel staan twee video's die beiden afkomstig zijn uit het bronartikel waar dit verhaal wordt verteld. Wij hebben er dan ook eigenlijk geen seconde bij stil gestaan dat die beide video's misschien niet over hetzelfde skigebied gaan.
Een lezer (dank!) stuurt dan ook het volgende bericht:
Goedenavond ik wilde even reageren, op het nieuws bericht van het ski ongeluk in Georgie.
Om nog enigszins geloofwaardig over te komen, moet je geen 2 verschillende ski gebieden laten zien. Je ziet duidelijk bij het ene filmpje rijen met bomen staan en dat er bewolking is. En dat de 2 zogenaamde ufo’s de weerkaatsing is van de zon op de camera glazen behuizing.
En inderdaad lijkt hier sprake te zijn van twee verschillende gebieden. De livecam-beelden waar de UFO's op verschijnen zijn niet opgenomen in het skigebied in Georgïë zoals in het bronartikel staat, maar zijn ergens in Amerika opgenomen. Op de livecam komt de naam Boyne Resort voor en die skigebieden zijn niet in Georgië, maar in Amerika.
De UFO's zijn nog steeds een merkwaardige verschijning, maar ze hebben in dit geval niet het ongeluk in Georgië veroorzaakt.
Origineel artikel: 18 maart 2018
Hoe vaak komt het voor dat een skilift, in plaats van vooruit, ineens met een grote snelheid achteruit gaat draaien?
Bij een noodstop van een skilift in het wintersportgebied Gudauri, in Georgië, zijn zeker tien mensen gewond geraakt. Op videobeelden is te zien hoe de stoeltjes van lift op skipiste Sadzele achteruit glijden als de baan abrupt tot stilstand wordt gebracht. Skiërs springen uit de lift, of worden er hardhandig uit geslingerd.
Medewerkers van de lift slaagden er niet in de achteruit glijdende gondeltjes tegen te houden, meldt Jam-News. Sommige skiërs sprongen zelf uit de stoeltjes, maar anderen werden ruw uit hun zitjes gegooid. Omstanders schoten de gewonden direct te hulp.
Echter wat niet wordt vermeld in de berichten is dat net voor het ongeluk er twee vreemde UFO's verschenen boven de piste. Ze kwamen uit het niets en op de baan zie je verschillende mensen naar de lucht wijzen.
Het is een bekend feit dat UFO's elektrische verstoringen kunnen veroorzaken en zo zullen deze UFO's er ongetwijfeld (per ongeluk?) voor hebben gezorgd dat er iets "omdraaide" in het mechanisme dat de skilift aandrijft.
Hieronder volgen de webcambeelden waarop de twee UFO's plotseling verschijnen. Jammer dat in de mainstream media maar zo weinig van het werkelijke verhaal wordt verteld.
Bij een noodstop van een skilift in het wintersportgebied Gudauri, in Georgië, zijn zeker tien mensen gewond geraakt. Op videobeelden is te zien hoe de stoeltjes van lift op skipiste Sadzele achteruit glijden als de baan abrupt tot stilstand wordt gebracht. Skiërs springen uit de lift, of worden er hardhandig uit geslingerd.
Medewerkers van de lift slaagden er niet in de achteruit glijdende gondeltjes tegen te houden, meldt Jam-News. Sommige skiërs sprongen zelf uit de stoeltjes, maar anderen werden ruw uit hun zitjes gegooid. Omstanders schoten de gewonden direct te hulp.
Echter wat niet wordt vermeld in de berichten is dat net voor het ongeluk er twee vreemde UFO's verschenen boven de piste. Ze kwamen uit het niets en op de baan zie je verschillende mensen naar de lucht wijzen.
Het is een bekend feit dat UFO's elektrische verstoringen kunnen veroorzaken en zo zullen deze UFO's er ongetwijfeld (per ongeluk?) voor hebben gezorgd dat er iets "omdraaide" in het mechanisme dat de skilift aandrijft.
Hieronder volgen de webcambeelden waarop de twee UFO's plotseling verschijnen. Jammer dat in de mainstream media maar zo weinig van het werkelijke verhaal wordt verteld.
My recent article on the Men in Black asked the question: Are the MIB self-aware? It’s a question that many might not have given much thought to. But, it’s certainly a valid question. After all, you only have to read a handful of stories of the Men in Black to realize that (a) they are not human; (b) they come across almost as if they are “programmed;” and (c) at times they even have a distinct “going through the motions”-type approach to their often-less-than-efficient intimidation and threats. There’s another group of creepy entities that fall into this very same category of not appearing completely self-aware (if at all, even). It’s the Black Eyed Children.
Although, today, I have accounts from people who claim to have seen the BEC as far back as the 1930s, the first reported cases didn’t surface until around two decades ago. We’ll focus on one case which occurred in the 1990s. The location was the Lone Star State, specifically the city of Abilene. The story revolves around a man named Brian Bethel, a journalist with the Abilene Reporter News. It was late one night when Bethel’s life was changed and he came to realize that there are dangerous, supernatural entities in our midst.
It was close to 10:00 p.m. when Bethel had the kind of encounter that never gets forgotten. He had pulled up at a mall not too far from his home, to deposit a check in a mail-box. All was quiet and dark. Bethel, using the lights of the mall to illuminate the interior of his vehicle, was writing the check when he was suddenly interrupted. He jumped with surprise at the sight of a couple of kids who were standing next to the car, on the driver’s side. But, there was something about these kids that rang alarm bells in Bethel’s head. In fact, as Bethel would imminently learn, things were wrong in the extreme.
Bethel stared at the pair and couldn’t fail to see just how incredibly pale the face of one of the boys was. The other had what Bethel described as olive-colored skin. Both boys were around ten to fourteen years of age, Bethel estimated, and both were dressed in pullovers. Only one of the two boys spoke – he claimed that they wanted to see a movie at the local cinema. But, there was a problem: they had left their money at home. Could Bethel take them to their homes to get some cash? Bethel near-instantly realized that this whole situation had an air of dark and disturbing theater about it. There was an undeniably unsettling agenda at work, and it had absolutely zero to do with movies. Feeling almost mind-controlled by the pair, and seeing their strange, completely black eyes, Bethel hit the road. And quickly, too. It was a wise move.
The BEC act as weird as the Men in Black. They knock on doors late at night, or ring doorbells, and then deliver one of several variations designed to allow them to get into the home of the poor soul they targeted. “We’re lost. Can we use the phone?” “We’re hungry. Can we please come in and have some food?” “We’re homeless. Can you give us some money?” The primary reason why people don’t fall for their ruses (most of the time, at least) is because of the undeniably weird, surreal and creepy situations. And, of course, the weird appearances of the Black Eyed Children hardly helps.
Indeed, the BEC don’t seem to realize – at all – that their odd antics are almost guaranteed to ensure that people won’t let them in. The questions they ask, while standing on the doorstep, do nothing but terrify their targets. The result: the BEC often have doors slammed in their faces. In my MIB article I referenced the story of a woman named Tina Vincent. In the late 1980s, Tina had an eerie experience with a Man in Black, something which led her to suspect that her MIB was “programmed,” rather than acting on its own volition. Are the BEC self-aware? In light of all the above, I would say not just no, but hell no.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Floating Objects Seen In Earths Orbit On Live Video Feed, March 17, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Floating Objects Seen In Earths Orbit On Live Video Feed, March 17, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 17, 2018 Location of sighting: Earths Orbit Source: Live space station cam
These strange UFOs appeared on live came the other day and were recorded by MrMBB333 of Youtube. They seem to hover in place and make no movement. UFOs appear on the live Internet cam several times daily, so keep your eyes out and you will be the next to catch one. Scott C. Waring
MrMBB333 of Youtube states:
March 17, 2018: A very obvious group of some sort of ships or crafts were visible from the ISS March 17, 2018 holding steading high above the earth. As the ISS moved closer in the direction of these ships they disappeared. ISS Live Feed.
Floating Objects Seen In Earths Orbit On Live Video Feed, March 17, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Floating Objects Seen In Earths Orbit On Live Video Feed, March 17, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 17, 2018 Location of sighting: Earths Orbit Source: Live space station cam
These strange UFOs appeared on live came the other day and were recorded by MrMBB333 of Youtube. They seem to hover in place and make no movement. UFOs appear on the live Internet cam several times daily, so keep your eyes out and you will be the next to catch one. Scott C. Waring
MrMBB333 of Youtube states:
March 17, 2018: A very obvious group of some sort of ships or crafts were visible from the ISS March 17, 2018 holding steading high above the earth. As the ISS moved closer in the direction of these ships they disappeared. ISS Live Feed.
Film crew records me all day for their UFO mystery TV show, March 18, 2018
Film crew records me all day for their UFO mystery TV show, March 18, 2018
Did my first ever interview for a Japanese film crew that wanted to make an entire show about me. Started at 10am Sun and finished about 7PM that night. They covered my job, my family, my life in general, living here in Taiwan, at my work place, home, street, restaurant, the full package. Anyways, here is a small clip of them in my classroom only. Kids had a lot of fun. Its cool when people appreciate the work you do. Scott C. Waring
FastWalkers is a code name created by the North American Aerospace Defense Command to classify Unidentified Flying Objects which moving and changing directions at high speed and enter or leave the atmosphere at a great velocity.
Sometimes FastWalkers have been captured on the Defense Support Program satellite system as happened on May 5, 1984 when a DSP satellite captured a FastWalker while it was traveling a 22,000 mph.
In the summer of 1947, a rancher discovered unidentifiable debris in his sheep pasture outside Roswell, New Mexico. Although officials from the local Air Force base asserted that it was a crashed weather balloon, many people believed it was the remains of an extraterrestrial flying saucer; a series of secret “dummy drops” in New Mexico during the 1950s heightened their suspicions. Nearly 50 years after the story of the mysterious debris broke, the U.S. military issued a report linking the incident to a top-secret atomic espionage project called Project Mogul. Still, many people continue to embrace the UFO theory, and hundreds of curiosity seekers visit Roswell and the crash site every year.
THE ROSWELL “UFO” INCIDENT
One morning around Independence Day 1947, about 75 miles from the town of Roswell, New Mexico, a rancher named Mac Brazel found something unusual in his sheep pasture: a mess of metallic sticks held together with tape; chunks of plastic and foil reflectors; and scraps of a heavy, glossy, paper-like material. Unable to identify the strange objects, Brazel called Roswell’s sheriff. The sheriff, in turn, called officials at the nearby Roswell Army Air Force base. Soldiers fanned out across Brazel’s field, gathering the mysterious debris and whisking it away in armored trucks.
On July 8, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region” was the top story in the Roswell Daily Record. But was it true? On July 9, an Air Force official clarified the paper’s report: The alleged “flying saucer,” he said, was only a crashed weather balloon. However, to anyone who had seen the debris (or the newspaper photographs of it), it was clear that whatever this thing was, it was no weather balloon. Some people believed–and still believe–that the crashed vehicle had not come from Earth at all. They argued that the debris in Brazel’s field must have come from an alien spaceship.
DUMMY DROPS AND UFOS
These skeptics grew more numerous during the 1950s, when the Air Force conducted a series of secret “dummy drops” over air bases, test ranges and unoccupied fields across New Mexico. These experiments, meant to test ways for pilots to survive falls from high altitudes, sent bandaged, featureless dummies with latex “skin” and aluminum “bones”–dummies that looked an awful lot like space aliens were supposed to–falling from the sky onto the ground, whereupon military vehicles would descend on the landing site to retrieve the “bodies” as quickly as possible. To people who believed the government was covering up the truth about the Roswell landing, these dummy drops seemed just as suspicious. They were convinced that the dummies were actually extraterrestrial creatures who were being kidnapped and experimented on by government scientists.
ROSWELL AND THE MYSTERIOUS PROJECT MOGUL
It turned out that the Army knew more about Brazel’s “flying saucer” than it let on. Since World War II, a group of geophysicists and oceanographers from Columbia University, New York University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod had been working on a top-secret atomic espionage project at New Mexico’s Alamogordo Air Field that they called Project Mogul. Project Mogul used sturdy high-altitude balloons to carry low-frequency sound sensors into the tropopause, a faraway part of the Earth’s atmosphere that acts as a sound channel. In this part of the atmosphere, sound waves can travel for thousands of miles without interference, much like under the ocean. The scientists believed that if they sent microphones into this sound channel, they would be able to eavesdrop on nuclear tests as far away as the Soviet Union.
According to the U.S. military, the debris in Brazel’s field outside Roswell actually belonged to Project Mogul. It was the remains of a 700-foot-long string of neoprene balloons, radar reflectors (for tracking) and sonic equipment that the scientists had launched from the Alamogordo base in June and that had, evidently, crashed in early July 1947. Because the project was highly classified, no one at the Roswell Army Air Field even knew that it existed, and they had no idea what to make of the objects Brazel had found. (In fact, some officials on the base were worried that the wreckage had come from a Russian spy plane or satellite–information that they were understandably reluctant to share with the public.) The “weather balloon” story, flimsy though it was, was the simplest and most plausible explanation they could come up with on short notice. Meanwhile, to protect the scientists’ secret project, no one at Alamogordo could step in and clear up the confusion.
ROSWELL AND “FLYING-SAUCERISM” TODAY
Today, many people continue to believe that the government and the military are covering up the truth about alien landings at and around Roswell. In 1994, the Pentagon declassified most of its files on Project Mogul and the dummy drops, and the federal General Accounting Office produced a report (“Report of Air Force Research Regarding the Roswell Incident”) designed to debunk these rumors. Nevertheless, there are still people who subscribe to the UFO theory, and hundreds of thousands of curiosity seekers visit Roswell and the crash site every year, hoping to find out the truth for themselves.
NASA May Not Manage To Save Us From Massive Asteroid That Could Wipe Out Life On Earth
NASA May Not Manage To Save Us From Massive Asteroid That Could Wipe Out Life On Earth
There’s a chance that on Sept 21, 2135, a massive space rock impacts Earth.Researchers found that it might be impossible to stop a 500-meter wide asteroid from impacting our planet. It has been warned that even NASA’s most advanced technology could prove futile against such a threat. However, in order to deal with the problem, scientists have detailed a plan called HAMMER. In the proposal scientists from NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration say a spacecraft could be used as an ‘impactor’ to deflect an object. However, experts warn that if there isn’t enough time, it would be better to nuke it.
According to a chilling scientific report, NASA won’t be able to stop a massive 500-meter wide asteroid that could impact Earth, bringing an end to civilization.
Researchers have discovered that it could be impossible to stop the massive comic rock, which is the size of the Empire State building, from impacting Earth in 2135, reports Daily Mail.
There’s a 1-in-2,700 chance that this will indeed happen, on Sept. 21, 2135, BuzzFeed News reported.
As noted by experts, even out most advanced technology would prove useless for deflecting a space rock of such size.
The rock, dubbed ‘Bennu’ is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group that was discovered by the LINEAR Project on September 11, 1999.
A scientific study performed in 2015 has shown that the highest impact probability for a planet is with Venus (26%), followed by the Earth (10%) and Mercury (3%). The odds of Bennu striking Mars are only 0.8% and there is a 0.2% chance that Bennu will eventually collide with Jupiter.
Scientists say that if such a rock would impact Earth, it would have terrible consequences for our planet, and the asteroid and its collision course have sparked fears it could wipe out civilization on Earth.
Scientists have calculated if an impact were to occur, the expected kinetic energy associated with the collision would be 1200 megatons in TNT equivalent
In order to avoid a civilization-ending scenario on Earth, experts are looking for ideas that could help them stop such a massive space rock from impacting our planet. So far, scientists are looking into the possibility of using a special spacecraft to ‘nuke’ asteroids such as Bennu, in hope that it could deflect the asteroid, altering its collision course.
HAMMER seems to be the best bet.
This 2013 plot by NASA JPL shows the orbits of potentially hazardous (more than 140 meters in diameter) near-Earth objects that pass within 4.7 million miles of Earth’s orbit. Earth’s orbit is represented by the darker black circle.
Scientists from NASA and the National Nuclear Security Administration have come up with a plan called HAMMER; Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response. Using a spacecraft that would act as an ‘imapctor’ NASA would slam an object into the oncoming space rock hoping to deflect it.
HAMMER is a nine-meter, 8.8-ton spacecraft that could be used to approach an asteroid and blow it up using a nuclear device, notes BuzzFeed.
Currently, the massive space rock is about 84 million kilometers from Earth and is moving slowly around the orbit of the sun, but since the orbits of the planets are not round, there is a point where it would pass relatively close to Earth.
NASA wants to take this opportunity to study the asteroid and possibly discover information about the origin of the universe, the formation of the planets and, if possible, determine where we come from.
Will the remains of an ancient Prometheus type civilization be buried there? Probably not, but we can still learn a lot about the universe.
Anyway. NASA has devised a plan around a potential impact with the 500-meter asteroid, which is currently the destination for NASA’s Osiris-Rex sample return mission.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and Moon system using its NavCam1 imager on January 17 from a distance of 39.5 million miles (63.6 million km). Earth is the largest, brightest spot in the center of the image, with the smaller, dimmer Moon appearing to the right.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin
Despite the fact that Earth isn’t in direct threat by Bannu, and it isn’t expected to impact Earth anytime soon, scientists say here’s a 1 in 2,700 chance it will slam into our planet sometime next century.
Luckily, Bennu happens to be the best-studied asteroids of all Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
‘The two realistic responses considered are the use of a spacecraft functioning as either a kinetic impactor or a nuclear explosive carrier to deflect the approaching NEO,’ the authors wrote in the study, published to the journal Acta Astronautica.
But there’s always a ‘but’.
“Whenever practical, the kinetic impactor is the preferred approach, but various factors, such as large uncertainties or short available response time, reduce the kinetic impactor’s suitability and, ultimately, eliminate its sufficiency,” the authors wrote.
As for HAMMER, mankind’s savior spacecraft does not yet exist, and at the moment it’s just a theory, but NASA knows it’s something they have to consider in the future, and hopefully, it will be ready before Bennu gets too close.
UFO flew over TWO US passenger jets - pilots' shock caught on audio
UFO flew over TWO US passenger jets - pilots' shock caught on audio
US passenger jet pilots were left stunned after a huge UFO passed over two planes - with every word of their shock recorded on audio. The series of bizarre events is revealed by air traffic control audio recordings involving the American passenger jets at high altitudes.
And another pilot chimes in on the frequency saying "a UFO" to which the Learjet pilot replies “yeah”.
A few minutes later, the controller asked another flight behind to look out for anything passing over “in the next 15 miles”
An American Airlines captain exclaims in a puzzled manner "if anything passes over us?"
The controller hits back: ”Affirmative, we had an aircraft in front of you that reported something pass over him and we didn't have any [radar] targets, so just let me know if you see anything pass over you."
And sure enough, a minute later American 1095 airbus calls back to confirm he has spotted the UFO.
“I don't know what it was, but it was at least two or three thousand feet above us.
“Yeah it passed right over the top of us."
Baffled by the report, the controller asks the navigator: ”Could you tell if it was in motion or if it was just hovering?"
The navigator quickly replies: "I couldn't make it out if it was a balloon or whatnot, but it was just really beaming light or had a big reflection and several thousand feet above us going the opposite direction."
And according to an FAA representative the incident was not written up and noted or investigated further..
The sightings join the ranks of many recent US Navy pilot radar video releases said to show inexplicable UFOs.
There was also an encounter with a mystery unidentified craft by pilots over Denver.
Thousands of people believe UFOs are the craft of aliens visiting Earth, however, as yet there is no firm proof to back this up.
However, even the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON),m based in the US, which investigates and logs such sightings, says more than 90 percent are down to natural or man made phenomena.
Google Maps: Alien UFO ‘flying saucer’ spotted HIDING under a mountain in shock footage
Google Maps: Alien UFO ‘flying saucer’ spotted HIDING under a mountain in shock footage
GOOGLE MAPS shows an alien UFO flying saucer style craft pictured peeking out from between two mountains in the remote Antarctica area. The sighting points to the possibility of extra terrestrial life elsewhere in the world.
Google Maps is a brilliant platform for alien and UFO hunters who dedicate themselves to finding extra terrestrial activity on our planet.
This is all thanks the cameras and their incredible coverage of the hidden and remote parts of our planet.
While aliens and their UFO crafts are believed to keep a low profile when they visit planet Earth, perhaps they didn’t count on the all seeing nature of the Google Maps street view cameras.
This certainly seems to be the case with the latest UFO sighting in the South Pole in the Antarctica, one of the remotest areas of the world.
Google Maps
Google Maps: Alien UFO hiding beneath snowy mountain
Google Maps has caught the alien UFO on camera in the Antarctica
Google Maps UFO proof
Where is this latest sighting? It was found at location 66°16'24.1"S 100°59'04.8"E on the Google Maps platform.
With its snowy mountains, sub zero temperatures and mysterious rising mists, the South Pole might seem like a safe hiding place for something as top secret as a spacecraft.
However, it’s bad luck for the suspected aliens, whose UFO may have been caught on camera, according to YouTube channel Secure Team.
The channel owners, who are devoted to alien hunting, have suggested this circle spotted peeking out of the mountains is a “flying saucer” style UFO.
Google Maps
Google Maps: This is the site of the suspected UFO
With its defined glowing white outer rim and circular shape, the footage certainly resembles previous images of suspected UFOs.
Thanks to its dark colour, the UFO blends in with the dark coloured mountain it is hiding underneath.
It might have even succeeded in its mission to hide if not for a slim passage of snow which has accumulated below the mountain, giving its hiding place away.
Instead, it forms a striking contrast with the snow underneath, creating a tell tale light and dark effect.
Google Maps
Google Maps: Alien UFO evidence can be found using these coordinates
This isn’t the first time Google Maps has discovered UFO evidence in the Antartica area.
Found at location 80°34'08.4"S 30°05'19.3”W, a small dent can be seen in the snow with no other tracks around it.
Spotted by Russian UFO-enthusiast Valentin Degterev, he believes that the spot is the marking of alien lifeforms.
It measures at 65 feet wide and 230 feet long, making it large enough for a vessel to have created.
And now, Dr Richard Waller, senior lecturer of physical geography at Keele University, has now told Daily Star Online what they could really be.
Cave’s reveal 'Nazi base'
A long-standing conspiracy theory around Antarctica is that it was the site of a secret base used by the Nazis during World War Two.
The Germans did visit the continent to set up a whaling base during the period and also scouted for a place to set up a naval base, but nothing came of it.
Conspiracist MrMBB333 is one of those who believes there is a secret Nazi base and posted a clip to YouTube in a bid to prove it.
It appeared to show a huge “man-made” entrance into a mountain, in the New Swabia area of Antarctica, but Dr Waller rubbished the theory.
“This just looks like a lake basin on the mountainside where the lake ice and surrounding snow has partially melted and been saturated with meltwater – hence the darker colour,” he said.
GETTY/DS
REVEALED: Antarctica's biggest mysteries may have finally been solved
Pyramids 'clue to ancient civilisation'
Images of what appeared to be gigantic pyramids – with an uncanny resemblance to the pyramids of Giza in Egypt – sparked claims they were proof of ancient civilisations in 2016.
But the sight isn’t actually uncommon, according to Dr Waller.
“The mountain depicted is certainly very regular in terms of shape,” he told Daily Star Online.
“There are plenty of examples of very regular shapes being produced in natural environments and glaciers tend to produce features like this, called ‘pyramidal peaks’.
“It is one of the classic glacial landforms.”
Heat map uncovers 'secret government base'
Renowned conspiracy theorist Tyler Glockner – of YouTube channel secureteam10 – claimed he had found a top-secret multi-level government base last month.
He used the Global Heat Map to highlight heat signatures from an isolated location, yet when he switched to Google Earth of the same area, nothing was seen.
Dr Waller’s theory is completely unexpected.
He suggested that the Strava signatures were actually from a Marathon event at the time that was run in Antarctica, named Ice Marathon.
UFO 'crash site'
Tyler went viral for a second time earlier this month for claiming to have found a crash-landed spaceship on South Georgia Island, a remote British Overseas territory.
Using Google Earth, he pointed to an unknown mass that appeared to have skidded “1,000 metres” before grinding to a halt.
But Dr Waller suggested it was simply part of a glacier that had collapsed after an avalanche at the nearby Mount Paget.
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The Alien Planets of TRAPPIST-1 May Be Too Wet for Life
The Alien Planets of TRAPPIST-1 May Be Too Wet for Life
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
An artist's illustration of the view from one of the seven planets orbiting the red dwarf TRAPPIST-1, with several other worlds visible closer to the small, dim star.
Credit: N. Bartmann/spaceengine.org/ESO
The seven rocky planets circling the nearby star TRAPPIST-1 have lots of water, a new study suggests — perhaps too much to make them good bets for life.
All of the TRAPPIST-1 worlds likely harbor hundreds of Earth oceans' worth of water on their surfaces, and the wettest ones may have over 1,000 times more of the stuff than our planet does, according to the study.
"Too much water can be a bad thing," lead author Cayman Unterborn, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, told Space.com. "The TRAPPIST-1s are interesting, but maybe not for life."
TRAPPIST-1 is a dim red dwarf star that lies about 39 light-years from Earth. Astronomers discovered three planets circling the star in 2016, and four more were announced a year later. Each of the seven worlds — which are known as TRAPPIST-1b, c, d, e, f, g and h — is about the same size as Earth. And three of the alien worlds (e, f and g) are thought to lie in TRAPPIST-1's "habitable zone" — that just-right range of distances where liquid water could likely exist on a planet's surface.
TRAPPIST-1 is about 2,000 times dimmer than the sun, so the red dwarf's habitable zone is very close-in. Indeed, all seven TRAPPIST-1 planets lie closer to their star than Mercury does to the sun.
This diagram shows illustrations of the seven TRAPPIST-1 planets and compares some of their key characteristics with those of the rocky planets in our own solar system.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
All of the TRAPPIST-1 planets were discovered via the "transit method"; several different instruments noticed the tiny brightness dips that resulted when the worlds crossed their host star's face. The magnitude of these dips revealed the sizes of the worlds. And astronomers have been able to estimate the planets' masses, though not nearly as precisely, by studying how their transits have varied over time. (These variations occur as neighboring planets tug on one another gravitationally.)
With this mass and volume information in hand, Unterborn and his team used computer models to get a better idea of the composition of six of the TRAPPIST-1 worlds. (They didn't deal with TRAPPIST-1h, the outermost planet, because not enough is known about it.)
This modeling work suggested that there's a wetness gradient in the TRAPPIST-1 system. The innermost planets, b and c, are probably about 10 percent water by mass, whereas the wet stuff makes up at least 50 percent of the more distant f and g. The middle planets d and e fall somewhere in between.
All of these worlds are sopping wet, even at the low end of the gradient. For comparison, Earth is just 0.2 percent water by mass. Indeed, the TRAPPIST-1 planets are probably "water worlds," with no land to break the monotony of wind and wave, Unterborn said.
If that is indeed the case, the odds of finding life in the system may not be great.
"With no exposed land, key geochemical cycles including the drawdown of carbon and phosphorus into oceanic reservoirs from continental weathering will be muted, thus limiting the size of the biosphere," the researchers wrote in the new study, which was published online today (March 19) in the journal Nature Astronomy. "As such, although these planets may be habitable in the classical definition of the presence of surface water, any biosignature observed from this system may not be fully distinguishable from abiotic, purely geochemical sources."
And all that water might shut down some key geological processes that could help life get a foothold, Unterborn said. For example, rocks in Earth's mantle often become liquid after moving upward to a zone of lower pressure, where their melting point is lower. But such "decompression melting" may occur rarely, if at all, on the TRAPPIST-1 worlds, because the huge weight of the overlying global oceans jacks up mantle pressures so much.
Without molten rock near the surface, there can be no volcanoes (at least not the kind we're used to here on Earth). And without volcanoes, heat-trapping gases, such as carbon dioxide, may have a hard time reaching the atmosphere — which means the TRAPPIST-1 planets may have been subjected to a "runaway snowball" effect, Unterborn said. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
Planets orbiting red dwarfs face other habitability challenges, many researchers have stressed. For example, if these worlds orbit tightly enough to be in the habitable zone, they're almost certainly "tidally locked," meaning they always show the same face to their parent star. So, one side of such planets may be boiling hot while the other is frigid. This problem could be mitigated by the presence of a thick atmosphere, which would circulate heat. But red dwarfs fire off lots of powerful flares, which may quickly strip away the atmospheres of habitable-zone worlds.
Such issues are heavily debated and studied, which isn't surprising given the prevalence of red dwarfs: About 75 percent of the Milky Way's stars are red dwarfs, so they likely harbor most of the galaxy's real estate, habitable or otherwise.
The new study also sheds light on the formation and evolution of the TRAPPIST-1 system. For example, all seven planets currently lie inside the primordial "snow line" — the point beyond which it was cold enough for water to remain frozen when the worlds were taking shape. But the team's results suggest that planets f, g and h actually formed beyond this boundary and migrated inward over time. Planets b and c, on the other hand, coalesced inside the primordial snow line. (It's not clear where TRAPPIST-1d and e were born in relation to this line, which the researchers said was likely located somewhere between the newborn worlds c and f.)
Overall, the study indicates that red dwarf systems such as TRAPPIST-1 shouldn't be thought of as just miniature versions of our own solar system, Unterborn said; their planets may form in slightly different ways, and/or on slightly different timescales.
"Understanding it from a planetary formation and evolution perspective, I think, is — for the public especially — a much more powerful way of selling TRAPPIST-1 than life," he said. "No one likes being the wet blanket who says, 'Well, actually, they're not that great for life.' But they're really interesting, and we need to know these things in order to understand the planets that are likely to have life."
Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is currently a leading candidate for scientists searching for the ingredients for extraterrestrial life. One new study shows how microorganisms could survive there, living off of methane.
ASTROBIOLOGICAL FINDINGS
Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is a leading candidate in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. One new study improves the moon’s likelihood of holding life. Scientists have found that, under Enceladus-like conditions, certain microbes known as methanogenic archaea can grow and produce methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases.
These researchers suggest that the geochemical reactions in Enceladus’ rocky core could produce enough methane to support such microbes — pointing a hypothetical ecosystem for such life.
To reach these conclusions, the research team, led by Simon Rittmann of the University of Vienna, used unique gas compositions and pressures in the lab to mimic the environment that is predicted to exist on Enceladus. They then cultured three different microscopic organism species in this environment. They found that, among the species cultivated, Methanothermococcus okinawensis was able to produce methane and thrive despite the presence of growth-inhibiting compounds. The resulting study was published in the journal Nature.
LOOKING TO ENCELADUS
Enceladus’ icy crust hides a global ocean, and its southern pole is rife with hydrothermal activity. This Saturnian satellite also cultivates heat from friction with Saturn, and is home to a variety of compounds that are also common on Earth — molecular hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide.
Future missions to observe the moon could use research on its potential inhabitants to guide and inform their goals, allowing them to gather the most pertinent data. Many entities, including NASA, are considering the possibility of reaching Enceladus to complete direct observations. Geoffrey Marcy, a retired professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, even told Astrowatch that such missions wouldn’t even need to land to collect the information they need; a spacecraft flying through the moon’s many vapor plumes might be able to collect enough samples to make the link.
As we learn more about the icy water worlds in our own backyard, it seems more likely that Enceladus and its fellow ice moons may play host to life as we do not yet know it. We might not know for sure until a mission departs, but until then, research like this will give such missions the tools they will need to succeed.
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China Outlines Two-Phase Chang'e 4 Moon Lander Mission
China Outlines Two-Phase Chang'e 4 Moon Lander Mission
By Leonard David, Space.com's Space Insider Columnist
Credit: CNSA
Later this year, the moon's far side will welcome its first robotic visitor — China's Chang'e 4 lander.
Zhao Xiaojin, a senior official at the China Aerospace Science and Technology (CAST), explained that the nation's two-phase Chang'e 4 missionis being readied for launch this year.
"In the first half of 2018, we will first launch a relay satellite to Lagrange L2 Point, where the satellite can keep communication with both the far side of the moon and the Earth," Zhao told China Central Television (CCTV) earlier this month. (The L2 Point is a gravitationally stable spot beyond the moon's far side.) [China's Moon Missions Explained (Infographic)]
"Therefore, we can control the lunar probe for data transmission using this relay satellite," Zhao added.
Launch of the Chang'e 4 lander is slated for the second half of 2018. After performing a soft touchdown on the lunar far side, the craft will "conduct in-situ and patrol exploration at the landing site," Zhao said.
Moon exploration program
China's Chang'e lunar exploration program takes its name from a Chinese moon goddess. The program's first phase consisted of the successful Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 missions, which lifted off in 2007 and 2010, respectively.
Chang'e 3 marked the beginning of the second phase, which includes orbiting the moon, landing and returning lunar samples to Earth. In 2013, Chang'e 3 performed the nation's first-ever soft landing on the moon; the lander also deployed a rover known as Yutu ("Jade Rabbit").
Chang'e 4 was built as the backup to China's Chang'e 3 probe. But Zhao told CCTV that Chang'e 4's mission profile differs in key ways from that of Chang'e 3
"Chang'e 3 lunar probe used a slow and arc-shaped landing, while as for Chang'e 4 lunar probe, we have to adopt a steep and almost vertical landing," Zhao explained. "Chang'e 4 lunar probe will have huge improvements on its capabilities, because we have adopted new technologies and new products. For example, Chang'e 3 lunar probe could not work during the night, but Chang'e 4 lunar probe can do some measurement work at night."
Polar exploration
Last year, Pei Zhaoyu, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center with the China National Space Administration (CNSA), told attendees at the 7th CSA-IAA Conference on Advanced Space Technology that China will implement three missions in the polar regions of the moon and set up scientific research stations there to offer a platform for future lunar probes.
"We will carry out three missions at the moon's polar regions to research the geological structure and mineral composition of its south pole, and we will take samples back from the moon during one of these missions," Pei told CCTV. "By building scientific research stations on the moon, we want to provide a platform for larger-scale and more rich lunar probe activities in the future."
China's blossoming robotic moon-exploration agenda suffered a setback last year, however: the July launch failure of the country's most powerful rocket, the Long March 5, on its second flight. That heavy-lifter is needed to launch China's planned lunar sample-return mission, Chinese officials have said.
This story has more information about the repercussions of the Long March 5 failure. And to learn more about Chang'e 4, check out this Gallery Military video.
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. This version of the story published on Space.com.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia will launch a mission to search for extraterrestrial life on Mars in 2019 – beating NASA’s planned mission scheduled for 2020.
Putin revealed his country’s ambitious space plans during a documentary about his presidency which was widely shared on Russian social media.
Newsweek.com reports: He said: “We are planning unmanned and later manned launches, into deep space, as part of a lunar program and for Mars exploration. The closest mission is very soon, we are planning to launch a mission to Mars in 2019.”
The revelation during a documentary on the president hosted by Andrey Kondrashov comes on the heels of NASA’s announcement it would attempt to explore the red planet in a Mars 2020 mission in which it would investigate the potential for life.
Putin, who is expected to be re-elected as president in the country’s election on Sunday, said that Russia would also launch a mission to the polar regions of the Moon, adding that its lunar program would differ to the one his country undertook in Soviet times.
“Our specialists will try to make landings on the poles, because there is reason to believe that there can be water there. There, there is progress to be made, studies of other planets, distant space can be started from there,” he said in the film uploaded to Russian social media site vkontakte.
Putin did not specify when in 2019 the Mars mission would happen. The NASA mission is expected to take place around July and August 2020 when the positions between Earth and Mars are best placed for a landing.
The race to the red planet is hotting up, with billionnaire entrepreneur Elon Musk telling the South by Southwest Conference on Sunday that his SpaceX Mars rocket may be ready for test flights next year. He had previously stated his ambition was to launch cargo flights by 2022.
So far, Russia’s attempts at a Mars mission have ended in failure. In 2011, the ill-fated Phobos-Grunt probe was unable to be fired toward the orbit of the red planet after launch. Its mission was designed to bring back samples from the planet’s moon Phobos.
The Russian space program Roscosmos worked with the European Space Agency in the Schiaparelli EDM lander mission, in which a Russian rocket was used.
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STRANGE UFO SIGHTINGS ABOVE MILWAUKEE 2018
STRANGE UFO SIGHTINGS ABOVE MILWAUKEE 2018
MILWAUKEE UFO SIGHTING 2018
If you haven’t seen the strange UFO sightings featured in a Fox News live report in Milwaukee, then you definitely want to watch this video.
Strange lights over the city seem to move randomly over downtown Milwaukee. The news anchors giving the morning news update were at a complete loss of words with one of them offering up a suggestion that it was fireworks making this display, while the other anchor hesitantly mentions “aliens?”
Fox News later reported that the lights came from flying seagulls and the slow shutter speed on the camera. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been around a lot of sea gulls in various light and weather conditions without ever witnessing anything quite like this!
So what do you think? Could this just be a weird camera effect of light bouncing off the seagulls as they fly through the air or possibly another unexplained UFO sighting? Let us know in the comments section below.
The following video analyses a series of five photos taken in a remote area of Orlando, Florida by my anonymous source, JP, on March 16, 2018. The photos show a craft estimated by JP to be flying/hovering at an altitude 2000-5000 feet high, and the size of two jumbo jets.
JP says that he had a missing time experience of approximately 30 minutes before taking the photo. On previous occasions where he has had missing time, he has been able to subsequently recall being taken on board the craft of a U.S. Air Force run secret space program, or cylindrical craft of alleged Nordic extraterrestrials.
The video shows close ups of the craft in the photos and how similar it is to a 2004 patent design for a triangle shaped spacecraft.
The symmetrical geometry of the craft in JP’s photos, the smooth edges, the apparent width of the craft, and some kind of large hemisphere generator in the center, is all very similar to the 2004 patent design for a Triangle Spacecraft as the following side by side comparison shows.
Coincidentally, the photos in the video were taken only three days after President Donald Trump gave a speech calling for the creation of a Space Force, which I discussed in my previous articleas a step towards disclosure of the US Air Force run secret space program. This raises the possibility that JP’s sightings are part of a USAF backed disclosure initiative that is being supported by the Trump administration.
I have known JP since 2008 and believe him to be a credible source who has had numerous experiences with both craft belonging to a US Air Force run secret space, and alleged Nordic extraterrestrials. Please review the further reading section for some of these articles that include his photos of craft he has witnessed, and/or been taken aboard, which help corroborate his experiences.
What follows are the originals of the first and fourth photos used in my video analysis of the March 16 photos for those wishing to conduct further photographic analysis.
Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Feel free to share this article with original links.
Research fellow, Dr Barry DiGregorio, mentioned photos launched by NASA’s Curiosity rover have been hint fossils exhibiting indicators of life.
He accused them of protecting up the reality so it will not hurt funding for its mission in little over a decade’s time.
Now the University of Buckingham professional has warned they want to up efforts of their seek for aliens or its astronauts face dying.
The floor of Mars: may these photos show LIFE exists on the Red Planet?
These photos launched by NASA present the floor of Mars. They have been pored over by boffins and truthseekers in search of telltale indicators that water as soon as flowed on the Red Planet, which might imply that alien life may as soon as have flourish there
Four geological layers to be examined by the mission, and greater reaches of Mount Sharp past the deliberate research space
“Astronauts could be exposed to unknown pathogenic microbes and viruses that we have no idea how to control”
Dr DiGregorio
Dr Dr Grigio instructed Daily Star Online: “Astronauts might be uncovered to unknown pathogenic microbes and viruses that we do not know how to management.
“That is why it’s so necessary to fly extra life detection devices to Mars – to make certain it’s secure to ship human beings or to return samples to Earth.”
He added: “Look on the eventualities that Elon Musk is presenting, he is speaking about sending folks to Mars regularly which is totally absurd.
“He’s completely ignoring the truth that there might be microbial life on Mars, and so far as being a scientist goes, the one factor you need to make certain of is that your folks have a level of confidence that the floor of Mars is sterile.
GETTYWARNING: An professional warns astronauts might be killed on Mars
“If you despatched astronauts to Mars and they die of pathogenic ailments from indigenous microbes, you are not going to have one other mission return there, the publicity can be horrible.”
The hint fossils discovered by Curiosity, Dr DiGregorio claims, characterize sings of “gentle bodied creatures” who as soon as roamed the planet.
NASA mentioned it believes the figures could also be crystals, and is contemplating “a number of prospects” on the area snaps.
But Dr DiGregorio has urged NASA to look at findings additional to stop astronaut fatalities.
Shutterstock / Leo Blanchette
More than 40,000 Americans have taken out insurance coverage towards being kidnapped by aliens.
He instructed us: “They are telling folks they’re in search of life however they don’t seem to be actually doing it, as a result of as soon as they do it in the event that they announce that to the general public, what number of missions do you assume are going to go and search for life?
“It’s a matter of ethics as properly as a result of I might assume that NASA desires to ship life detection experiments to Mars to make certain it is secure to ship people to Mars.
“What type of publicity would you will have if the primary people to set foot on Mars die of pathogenic ailments from indigenous microbes?
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If We Discover Alien Life, Will Humanity Keep Its Cool?
If We Discover Alien Life, Will Humanity Keep Its Cool?
By Carl Engelking
Mars has long been the best candidate to find extraterrestrial life?
(Credit: NASA)
For well over 1,500 years, humanity accepted that Earth was the center of the solar system. After all, the Bible—which was the scientific authority at the time—said this was so.
Then along came Nicolaus Copernicus, who in the 16th century dared to challenge the church and mathematically described a solar system with the sun at its center. After his death, Galileo Galilei’s observations of heavenly bodies further supported the Copernican model. The Catholic Church, fearing such a finding undermined the supreme authority of the Bible, charged him with heresy. Galileo would be sentenced to life imprisonment, but was allowed to serve his sentence at home due to his declining health.
So often, institutions that wield incredible power loathe major paradigm shifts that could undermine their authority and ability to monopolize the truth. Informing the masses that everything they’ve been told is wrong, after all, could result in a social upheaval that tears society apart, at least the thinking goes.
Today, the world is still grappling with a haunting question: Are we alone in this infinite universe, or is life infinitely diverse throughout the universe? To date, we are still alone, but discovering extraterrestrial life would tie a definitive bow on that existential question. In other words, it would be a major paradigm shift. So if we finally determine that we are indeed not alone, will the very fabric of society tear apart?
Probably not.
In fact, humanity might embrace the news with open arms. That’s the conclusion from Michael Varnum, a psychology professor at Arizona State University who is also part of the university’s Interplanetary Initiative, a research group aimed at building a social framework for a future extraterrestrial society. Varnum took on one of the group’s pilot projects, which was to empirically answer one question: How will humankind react to the discovery of life off Earth?
It’s a question that few researchers have sought to study, but Varnum was up for the task.
“I’m a person who has been into science and sci-fi for some time,” he said.
A Few Case Studies
The Robertson Panel in 1953 warned of mass hysteria if alien life were confirmed. Twenty-five percent of Americans in a recent survey expected people to panic when we discover alien life. Orson Welles certainly didn’t supply any evidence that humanity would keep its cool (news of the subsequent panic may have been grossly exaggerated, however). But Varnum’s study indicates this all hyperbole. Reality would probably be far more mundane.
First off, it’s far more likely that we’ll discover microbes or “non-intelligent” alien life before we meet sentient otherworldly beings. So Varnum limited the scope of the study to human reactions to news that scientists confirmed microbial alien life exists.
They started with a preliminary contextual analysis, measuring the reactions to news that extraterrestrial life might exist. They included five primary “discovery” events: the 1967 discovery of pulsars, the 1977 “Wow!” signal, the 1996 discovery of fossilized microbes on Mars, the 2015 discovery of Tabby’s star, and the 2017 discovery of exoplanets in the habitable zone of a star.
They analyzed news coverage, government memos and press releases of the event to determine the percentage of words in each article that were positive, negative, reward or risk. Words describing positive affect were more prevalent that those describing negative affect. Their preliminary findings suggested that society’s overall reaction to news about alien life was positive, and more reward oriented.
They then turned to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and asked 504 people to respond to a hypothetical situation: Imagine scientists just discovered microbial life outside of Earth. They were told to describe their reactions, as well as the reactions of other people. Again, people tended to be more positive. They repeated the experiment with a more concrete example: New York Times coverage of Bill Clinton’s 1996 announcement about Martian life, or Craig Venter’s 2010 announcement about synthetic life. Once again, alien life was viewed in a positive light.
“Positivity bias was stronger about extraterrestrial microbial life than synthetic life. There seems to be something especially positive about alien life,” says Varnum. He published results from the study this week in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
We’re Cool With Alien Life
Of course, contextual analysis of hypothetical situations and past events can’t necessarily predict what will actually happen if we confirm life off the planet. But Varnum said Clinton’s announcement 22 years ago is about as good of a test case as any, and its ultimate effect on the world was a real shoulder-shrug.
“It didn’t cause a radical shift in the way people lived their lives. It didn’t cause people to abandon anything,” Varnum says. “Human beings have been through pretty powerful paradigm shifts, from not being in the center of the universe to Darwin’s evolution. In the past, people would be afraid of them. But the notion that a discovery like this will destabilize anything, as it turns out, is kind of silly.”
Varnum thinks that confirming life exists throughout the universe might be viewed positively because it provides some comfort for lonely Earthlings.
“At least for me, it makes me feel that if we were to confirm alien life, I would feel like the universe is a warmer place; that we aren’t out here all alone,” says Varnum.
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HERE’S THE MIND-BOGGLING REASON WE PROBABLY WON’T MEET ALIENS WHILE THEY’RE STILL ALIVE
HERE’S THE MIND-BOGGLING REASON WE PROBABLY WON’T MEET ALIENS WHILE THEY’RE STILL ALIVE
Space empires could rise and fall without us knowing.
The search for alien life goes on, but our chances of hearing from extraterrestrial beings that are still alive are very slim, according to new research.
The problem is that civilisations likely don’t last as long as signals travelling through space.
These latest calculations are an update of the legendary Drake equation, first proposed in 1961 by Frank Drake at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia, as a shorthand way of calculating how much alien life could be out there.
Using variables such as the number of stars born each year, the number of potentially habitable planets they have, and the chances of organic life developing, the equation gives us some idea of the likelihood of receiving signals from beyond Earth.
A model of signal spread.
(arXiv.org)
And according to the newly updated numbers, it’s not looking promising.
“If the civilisation emitted from the other side of the galaxy, when the signal arrives here, the civilisation will already be gone,” one of the team, Claudio Grimaldi from the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne in Switzerland, told Lisa Grossman at Science News.
The research team also includes Frank Drake himself, now professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Each of the variables in the Drake equation are open to debate, but the scientists assumed a civilisation lifespan of 100,000 years as a marker, which is how long it takes light to cross the galaxy. Even an alien empire that lasted that long would only fill “a small fraction” of the galaxy with signals, the study determines.
For reference, we’ve been sending signals out into space for 80 years now, and those rippling signals will only have covered under 0.001 percent of the Milky Way.
What’s more, given the frequency of the signals we send out into space, an alien civilisation would need to be within 50 light-years for us to have heard back from them at this point, the researchers found.
While a hardy group of aliens who survived longer than 100,000 years could fill the galaxy with bouncing signals, there could again be gaps if new civilisations don’t spring up often enough to fill them, the data shows.
Another interesting finding was that the number of extraterrestrial signals crossing Earth at any one time should correspond to the number of civilisations currently broadcasting, whether or not the signals we’re hearing are from past or current civilisations. The researchers are still writing up their thoughts on that one.
The aim of all these calculations is to get a better perspective on our lack of contact with alien lifeforms so far. Is it because no one else is out there? Or is it because we just have a very low chance of hearing anything?
Eventually the researchers hope that the revised Drake equation can help us improve our chances of finding radio signals in space, perhaps through an improved understanding of where to point our telescopes.
This is still all preliminary though – the paper produced by the team has yet to be peer-reviewed by other scientists, though it is available online.
For now though, we shouldn’t expect to be hearing signals from alien lifeforms that are still around – at least not with an assumed civilisation lifespan of 100,000 years.
“The transmissions arriving at Earth may come from distant civilisations long extinct, while civilisations still alive are sending signals yet to arrive,” write the researchers.
You can read the research paper on the pre-print server arXiv.org.
TOO BIG, TOO SOON Supermassive black holes that are actively feeding on gas and dust, like the one shown in this artist’s rendition, have been spotted in the early universe — before they should have had time to grow.
NAOJ
The existence of supermassive black holes in the early universe has never made much sense to astronomers. Sightings since 2006 have shown that gargantuan monsters with masses of at least a billion suns were already in place when the universe was less than a billion years old – far too early for them to have formed by conventional means.
One or two of these old massive objects could be dismissed as freaks, says theoretical astrophysicist Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University. But to date, astronomers have spotted more than 100 supermassive black holes that existed before the universe was 950 million years old. “They’re too numerous to be freaks now,” she says. “You have to have a natural explanation for how these things came to be.”
The usual hypotheses are that these black holes were either born unexpectedly big, or grew up fast. But recent finds are challenging even those theories and may force astronomers to rethink how these black holes grow.
In the modern universe, black holes typically form from massive stars that collapse under their own gravity at the ends of their lives. They usually start out smaller than 100 solar masses and can grow either by merging with another black hole (SN: 3/19/16, p. 10) or by accreting gas from their environment (SN Online: 12/6/17).
That gas often organizes itself into a disk that spirals into the black hole, with friction heating the disk to white-hot temperatures that create a brilliant glow visible across billions of light-years. These black holes feeding on gas are called quasars. The faster a quasar eats, the brighter its disk glows.
But the glow from that gas also limits the black hole’s growth: The bright disk’s photons push away fresh material. That sets a physical limit on how fast black holes of a given mass can grow. Astronomers express how fast a black hole is eating with a term called the Eddington ratio, measuring the black hole’s actual brightness in relation to the brightness it would have if it were eating as fast as it possibly could.
Finicky feeders
Astronomers have measured Eddington ratios for only about 20 supermassive black holes in the early universe. Most seem to be eating at the limit, in contrast to quasars in the present-day universe that feed at about a tenth that speed. Those furious feeding rates still seem to defy the black holes’ supermassive size: A 100-solar-mass black hole accreting at the limit should take about 800 million years to reach a billion solar masses, even taking into account that it would eat faster as it grew. And that 800 million years doesn’t include the time it took the initial black hole seed to form.
But physicist Myungshin Im of Seoul National University in South Korea and colleagues worried that previous observations were missing pickier eaters because fast eaters are brighter and easier to spot. If some early massive black holes were lazy eaters, their super sizes become even more puzzling — and may rule out some theories for how they grew.
So the team deliberately sought out dimmer distant quasars in a September 2015 observing run at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
The researchers found IMS J2204+0112, a billion-solar-mass black hole eating at a tenth of its speed limit and hailing from when the universe was about 940 million years old. But at its feeding rate, the black hole shouldn’t have fully matured until the universe was 8 billion years old, the team reported on arXiv.org February 9.
“We show for the first time that quasars with low Eddington ratio exist in the early universe,” Im says.
IMS J2204+0112 is the dimmest slow-eating quasar spotted yet, but it’s not alone. Physicist Chiara Mazzucchelli of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany and colleagues reported 11 fussy supermassive black holes that existed when the universe was less than 800 million years old, in the Astrophysical Journal last November.
On average, those quasars weigh in at around 1.62 billion solar masses but eat at about 40 percent of the speed limit, the team reported. Strangely, the largest black hole in that group, HSC J1205-0000, had the lowest feeding rate: The black hole is 4.7 billion solar masses yet eats at only 6 percent of its limit.
It was strange enough to find supermassive black holes with gluttonous appetites in the early universe, but these picky eaters are even harder to explain.
Astronomers hope peering farther back in time will help find the “seed” black holes that may grow into behemoths. If some black holes started out huge, from 10,000 to a million solar masses, they could grow even larger either by merging with each other or accreting at the Eddington limit.
“If you start with such a very massive seed, you have a jump-start,” says astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University. “Then you don’t need as much time to grow to a billion solar masses.”
But theorists have been trying for 15 years to figure out how such huge black holes could form in the first place. One idea is that massive gas clouds or supermassive stars collapsed directly into a massive black hole.
Supermassive seeds
More recent work suggests it wouldn’t be that simple. Theoretical studies show it’s hard to prevent those gas clouds from fragmenting to form a cluster of small stars, rather than collapsing into one large star, says physicist Dominik Schleicher of the University of Concepción in Chile.
In the May 2018 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Schleicher and colleagues show that such clusters also could create massive black hole seeds, as newly formed stars accrete gas left over in the cluster. Such stars could swell to 100 to 1,000 times the radius of the sun. Their inflated sizes and close proximity to one another would make these stars collide, triggering a domino effect that eventually collects all the stars in the cluster into a single supermassive star 10,000 times the mass of the sun. That supermassive star could then collapse to form a relatively massive seed black hole.
The other possibility is that early supermassive black holes simply broke the Eddington limit. They may have gone through periods of eating more quickly than was thought possible and grew to near-supermassive proportions before calming down.
Loeb points out that there are situations in the present-day universe where black holes eat faster than the Eddington limit, such as when they rip apart and devour a star(SN: 4/1/17, p. 5). There are also situations where radiation can be trapped near the surface of the black hole, preventing it from pushing material away. “In that case you can feed the black hole as fast as you want,” Loeb says.
Or, Natarajan and colleagues suggest, the answer could be both: Black holes that are born big get bigger faster. “Evidence is mounting slowly that we need to consider more than one way,” Natarajan says.
In a December 2017 study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, she and her colleagues ran computer simulations showing that some environments can boost a black hole’s growth, allowing the black hole to consume a continuous stream of gas.
The rich get richer
Simulations show that a small black hole seed will never grow fast enough to become supermassive before the universe is a billion years old. But a black hole that was born large will grow faster and faster.
F. PACUCCI ET AL/ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS 2017
Still, only black holes born with masses at least 10,000 times that of the sun can grow to a billion solar masses within a billion years. But the most massive seeds are more likely to be born in a gas-rich environment.
“The environment around and the birth conditions for these black holes actually puts them on a track either for rapid growth spurts, or for rather slow growth,” Natarajan says. “The massive black hole seeds are the ones that won the birth lottery and got the best start in life.”
Twee weken voor zijn dood schreef Hawking nog paper waarin hij onthulde hoe onze Aarde zou ophouden te bestaan
Twee weken voor zijn dood schreef Hawking nog paper waarin hij onthulde hoe onze Aarde zou ophouden te bestaan
FOTO: ISOPIX
Zijn dood beroerde de hele wereld: Stephen Hawking stierf begin deze week. Amper twee weken voor zijn dood diende de wetenschapper nog een laatste baanbrekende onderzoekspaper in, waarin hij uitlegt hoe we bewijzen van een ‘multiversum’ kunnen vinden en waarin hij het einde van ons bestaan voorspelt.
De ‘multiversum’-theorie gaat ervan uit dat er naast ons universum nog andere universums zijn. Ons universum is slechts een van de vele anderen, veroorzaakt door de oerknal. En zo’n ander universum kunnen we detecteren en meten via een detector op een ruimteschip. Dat staat te lezen in de allerlaatste paper van wereldberoemd fysicus Stephen Hawking, die begin deze week stierf. Hij schreef de paper vanop zijn sterfbed, samen met Belgisch natuurkundige Thomas Hertog.
In de paper staat hoe de mensheid zo’n andere universums zouden kunnen vinden. De wiskundige berekeningen die nodig zijn om dat te kunnen bereiken, staan allemaal in die laatste, baanbrekende paper.
De kwestie van ‘multiversum’ hield Hawking al lang bezig. Ook al in 1983 schreef Hawking, samen met James Hartle, een onderzoekspaper waarin hij uitlegt hoe het universum is ontstaan, maar ook dat de oerknal oneindig veel andere oerknallen creëerde, die elk hun eigen universum hebben doen ontstaan.
De paper van Hawking suggereert ook dat het bestaan op Aarde uiteindelijk zal vervagen in de duisternis wanneer de energie van de sterren op is. Dat wordt in de kosmologie als een controversieel idee beschouwd, want het betekent meteen het einde van ons bestaan op Aarde, maar veel wetenschappers zien hierin ook een mogelijke doorbraak in de kosmologie.
Citizen-scientists Matt Brealey and Gustavo B C processed this color-enhanced image of a Jupiter storm using data captured on Feb. 7, 2018, by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno spacecraft.
Credit: Matt Brealey/Gustavo B C/NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS
A new photo shows a swirling maelstrom on Jupiter through rose-colored glasses.
NASA's Juno spacecraft snapped the original picture on Feb. 7, during its 11th close flyby of the gas giant. At the time, Juno was 7,578 miles (12,195 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, at a latitude of 49.2 degrees north, NASA officials said.
"Citizen scientist Matt Brealey processed the image using data from the JunoCam imager," NASA officials wrote in a photo description Friday (March 16). "Citizen scientist Gustavo B C then adjusted colors and embossed Matt Brealey's processing of this storm."
NASA and the Juno mission team encourage such image-processing efforts. To learn more or try your own hand, go to theJunoCam site.
The $1.1 billion Juno mission launched in August 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in July 2016. Juno loops around the solar system's largest planet in a highly elliptical orbit, zooming close once every 53 Earth days. It's during these close approaches — such as the Feb. 7 encounter — that the probe collects most of its science data.
That information consists largely of measurements of Jupiter's gravitational and magnetic fields, as well as details about the planet's structure and composition. Juno's observations should help scientists better understand how Jupiter — and, by extension, the solar system — formed and evolved, mission team members have said.
UFO caught on tape over Las Vegas, Nevada 11-Mar-2018
UFO caught on tape over Las Vegas, Nevada 11-Mar-2018
This bright object was hovering above Summerlin area of Las Vegas, Nevada.
Witness report:
I shot this video tonight using both the digital and night vision cameras and both are HD. The night vision camera does not record audio so that explains the music. The easiest way to publish them was to show one in front and one at the back of the video. Of course, both are showing the same event. Airplanes and helicopters are easy to spot in any video because they are always coming or going and are very predictable. UFOs aren’t really predictable at all and that is one of the ways to spot them. They also glow brightly, fade out and turn on and off again which any aircraft would never do at night. This is for my friend Christian who has seen them from much closer up along with many others.
On Wednesday, Stephen Hawking’s family announced the legendary physicisthad died at age 76. It’s an enormous loss for space enthusiasts of all ages, but physicists tell Inverse there’s an additional layer of sadness for them.
Inverse asked physicists across the world to explain Hawking’s greatest scientific achievement, and it’s clear the Brief History of Time author challenged the community to think differently about the universe while touching millions of lives along the way.
Stephen Hawking floating
Leo Stein, Postdoctoral Researcher at Caltech
“His greatest accomplishment was his discovery that black holes radiate. This has led to now more than four decades of head-scratching — more than four decades later, we still don’t understand how to cope with this fact,” Stein tells Inverse. “But it highlights one of the crucial thought experiments for constructing a consistent theory of quantum gravity — how do you keep black holes from destroying information as they evaporate and disappear? Hawking’s calculation led to thousands of publications trying to make sense of the puzzle.”
“Socially: His popular writing excited generations of science enthusiasts. I bet if you did a survey of scientists my age, a good chunk of them would’ve read A Brief History of Time or one of his other popular books when they were kids.”
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Astrophysicist
“Hawking’s belief that spending time sharing science with the public was a good is the reason I am a physicist,” tells Inverse. “My entire career he has been an example, especially when I became physically disabled and was for some time bedridden and realizing I would likely be in chronic pain for life.”
Seán Bartz, Visiting Assistant Professor at Macalester College
“Hawking’s greatest scientific contributions were in advancing our understanding of black holes,” tells Inverse. “He was instrumental in taking black holes from a nebulous idea to objects that could be studied with precision. Black hole thermodynamics is something that I use in my research as a means of studying nuclear physics. Hawking radiation tells us about the fate of black holes and possibly our entire universe.”
Robert McNees, Physicist
“It is difficult to single out one result, or even a group of closely related results, and call it ‘Stephen Hawking’s greatest scientific achievement.’ There were so many profound accomplishments across general relativity, quantum field theory, and cosmology that picking just one feels like an act of neglect. But if I had to choose one area, it would be his work transitioning from the classical laws of black hole mechanics to the quantum mechanical picture of black holes as fully thermodynamical objects. In 1973, Hawking, Bardeen, and Carter developed an elegant set of four laws governing the “mechanics” of all black holes — basic rules that explained how quantities like the mass, area of the event horizon, or surface gravity of a black hole change throughout very general physical processes. The rules bore a striking resemblance to the familiar laws of thermodynamics.
But if you’d asked me for his greatest achievement, and hadn’t specified ‘scientific,’ I think 13-year-old me would probably push adult me out of the way and say, ‘He makes me want to understand the universe.’”
Sabine Hossenfelder, Physicist
“I think his greatest achievement was to inspire huge numbers of people to think about space, time, and the origin of the universe — knowledge that before him was stuck in obscure corners of academia,” tells Inverse.
“He worked on many vital things in his career, but Stephen Hawking’s most significant and alarming scientific achievement is definitely the calculation that black holes can radiate and thus shrink and die,” he tells Inverse. “It’s a wonderful example of how, by simply and elegantly following through with the set of equations governing theories of nature — in this case quantum mechanics and general relativity — one arrives at a totally bizarre but mathematically sound conclusion. In the case of Hawking-Bekenstein radiation this concept is taken to its extreme, because the math part is pretty mundane and almost trivial, and the conclusion is bonkers. Just by doing a certain type of coordinate transformation near a black hole — that is, just by choosing a different set of coordinates to describe the physics going on, of which there are always many choices in physics, but they should all, at the end of the day, describe the same physics — you end up with the conclusion that particles are being emitted from the event horizon of the black hole! But nothing is supposed to be able to escape from a black hole!
This is a very odd but inescapable, inevitable conclusion of the math, and we love that in physics.”
On March 16, 2018, a witness was looking to the sky when he saw a bright UFO stationaryplusing white, orange-red and green.
Eyewitness statement:
“I live on the 5th floor of an apt. building which is on a high hill. I stepped outside onto my balcony around 7 p.m. and first noticed the sky was clear and blue but noticed an odd looking cloud shelf low in the horizon going left to right and I noticed a boom-arang shaped "cloud" just above the cloud shelf - I looked at it through the binoculars and it seemed to be made up of tiny horizontal dashes - not normal cloud material. It didn't move throughout this sighting.
Then I began noticing pitch black "worm-like" lines - some coming up from this cloud shelf then more descending from the middle of the blue sky (it's getting dusk at this point) then I began seeing more worm-like black lines starting at the top of the cloud shelf and going up and to the left as if drawing lines in the sky. I've never seen anything like this in my life (I'm 58). Then I called my sister and while I had her on the phone describing these bizarre black lines in the sky suddenly to the west what looked like a very bright star just appeared (clear sky) and it was pulsing white, red/orange and green and getting brighter then 4 more smaller orange/red pulsing lights appeared at the same time around this larger pulsing thing.
Then suddenly all 5 objects disappeared - went dark. They didn't move around at all while they were visible. It's now night time - dark out and I haven't seen anything else unusual. This is crazy. I took the pictures attached but they're hard to see - I was shaking watching these black worm things in the sky so the pictures are blurry and not all worm like things showed up. I think the picture with the vertical red lights are from a tv tower. You can barely make out the black worm things and I didn't capture the pulsing star-like objects - it was too dark outside at that point. I only got pictures of the boomarang cloud and black worm things.”
Photo Credit: L Jaramillo and O Macias, Virginia Tech
The Week's Top Space Stories
People around the world remember the life of Stephen Hawking, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is shrinking and turning orange and NASA's twin study with Scott and Mark Kelly confirm some fascinating findings. These are just some of this week's top stories on Space.com..
Photo Credit: The World in HDR/Shutterstock
1. Stephen Hawking, brilliant theoretical physicist, has died
Stephen Hawking, the iconic theoretical physicist, cosmologist and science communicator, died early Wednesday morning (Mar. 14) at the age of 76. Hawking was diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) as a 21 year old student at the University of Cambridge. Hawking persevered, and went on to make incredible contributions to modern understandings of physics and astronomy.
On Monday (Mar. 12) NASA Acting Chief Robert Lightfoot revealed he would retire from the agency at the end of April. The Senate has not taken measures to confirm the current nominee for the administrator position, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), and it is largely believed by the space industry that it's because he lacks to votes to win the nomination. Bridenstine has been criticized for his lack of a science background, in addition to comments he's made denying climate change and towards the LGBTQ community.
Plans to build an outpost near the moon for astronauts to live, learn and work on the lunar surface are underway. NASA is moving forward with its Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway project, whose first component might launch into space as early as 2022. The complex would include airlock capabilities, and would be significantly smaller than the International Space Station.
Photo Credit: A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center)/NASA/ESA
4. Orange is the new color of Jupiter's Great Red Spot
A new study reveals that the iconic Great Red Spot in Jupiter's atmosphere is growing taller as it shrinks. The storm system may also be funneling up particles that make it red, and scientists theorize that the spot is turning orange as a result of this upward movement, when this material gets hit by the sun's ultraviolet radiation and changes into the brighter color.
5. Twin study on space station has results confirmed
Scott Kelly's milestone flight aboard the International Space Station lasted 340 days, and the long-term investigation into human health changes under microgravity conditions recently confirmed findings from 2017. The mission compared space-faring Scott Kelly's health and gene expression with that of his twin brother Mark. The ends of chromosomes typically grow shorter as humans age, but Scott's were confirmed to have extended slightly longer. The NASA Twin Study also revealed long-term changes to Scott's gene expression and a decrease in his cognitive speed upon returning to Earth.
Photo Credit: L Jaramillo and O Macias, Virginia Tech
6. Faraway signal is not coming from dark matter
Ancient stars are actually the source of a mysterious cosmic signal radiating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, not dark matter. According to a new study, the gamma-rays that make up the signal are emanating from a multitude of rapidly spinning neutron stars that are thought to be 10 billion years old, and were interpreted as dark matter because the thousands of signal sources are so far away, the signals seem to come from one spot.
7. Short up-and-down flights may be first BFR tests
At the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that the spaceflight company's new project, the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), could begin testing its components as early as next year. On March 11, Musk spoke in an on-stage interview, sharing that the upper-stage "spaceship" of the rocket is currently being built. The tests would include short up-and-down flights that may happen in the first half of 2019.
8. Lunar birth story supports watery moon findings
Some evidence suggests that water may exist on the moon, and scientists decided to model the creation of the moon and the Earth to see if hydrogen, a component of water, could have survived the temperatures created by the origin event. The team found that the impact theory of lunar creation, in which a massive rock hit proto-Earth and caused material to jet out and eventually collect again as the moon, does support recent findings of higher water content in lunar samples.
Photo Credit: Township of Hamilton Police Department
9. Fireball shoots across Washington
A minivan-sized object zoomed into Earth's atmosphere on Mar. 7, and, after lighting the night sky over the Pacific Northwest, the fireball broke up and crashed into the Pacific Ocean, according to a NASA official. Seismographs and satellites detected this meteor from the Canadian province of Manitoba as well.
10. Researchers model how to blast a dangerous asteroid
A Russian team of researchers found that to successfully obliterate a 650-foot-wide (200 meters) asteroid bound for a collision with Earth, a missile would need the power of a 3-megaton nuclear bomb. They modeled this doomsday scenario with tiny asteroid replicas and laser blasts in order to mimic what a nuclear warhead might do. By detonating inside a crater or a cavity on the asteroid, the destructive power would increase, according to the researchers.
People Pointing to The Sky as ‘Alien Ships’ appear above Ski Resort – Ski Lift Goes Out Of Control!
People Pointing to The Sky as ‘Alien Ships’ appear above Ski Resort – Ski Lift Goes Out Of Control!
A really strange event happened this week in Gudauri ski resort in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia.
A live feed camera looking up a slope captured a pair of lights that suddenly appeared out of nowhere above the ski resort. The live feed also shows the moment that several people pointing to the strange bright objects.
The unknown objects do appear really strange and I would assume it was not a natural sky phenomenon, but even stranger is the fact that at the moment the bright objects appeared the ski lift went out of control.
The ski lift suddenly started running backwards at high speed and skiers had to jump to safety while people who were unable to get off safely fell out of the chairlift, flying through the air.
Eight people suffered minor injuries but two people have been seriously injured, including a pregnant woman, after the ski lift went out of control.
Despite early information suggests a cable stalled and came loose, it is more likely that the malfunction has been caused by the UFO-like bright objects above the ski area.
The first video shows the moment the UFOs appear above the ski resort, the second and third video showing the terrifying moments the ski lift goes out of control sending people flying through the air.
Kunstmatige intelligentie ontdekt duizenden nieuwe kraters op de maan
Kunstmatige intelligentie ontdekt duizenden nieuwe kraters op de maan
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Opnieuw moeten we onze meerdere erkennen in een computer.
De maan herbergt ontzettend veel kraters en we hebben ze dan ook lang nog niet allemaal ontdekt. Dat is ook niet zo gek; het ontdekken van kraters op de maan gaat er nog vrij ouderwets aan toe. “In feite moeten we naar een afbeelding kijken, de kraters lokaliseren en tellen en vervolgens aan de hand van de omvang van de foto berekenen hoe groot ze zijn,” vertelt onderzoeker Mohamad Ali-Dib.
Algoritme Natuurlijk hebben onderzoekers weleens geprobeerd om dat proces te automatiseren, bijvoorbeeld door algoritmes te ontwikkelen die kraters op de maan konden identificeren en tellen. Maar wanneer ze die algoritmes dan loslieten op nog niet eerder bestudeerde delen van het maanoppervlak, presteerden deze slecht. En dus bleef het ontdekken van kraters mensenwerk. Maar onderzoekers van de universiteit van Toronto brengen daar nu verandering in. “Voor het eerst hebben we een algoritme dat heel goed in staat is om kraters te detecteren, niet alleen op de maan, maar ook op Mercurius,” aldus Ali-Dib.
6000 kraters Het algoritme legt de grondslag voor een neuraal netwerk dan aan de hand van hoogtekaarten van de maan kraters kan identificeren. De onderzoekers ‘trainden’ het neutrale netwerk met behulp van een dataset met daarin gegevens van ongeveer tweederde van het maanoppervlak. Vervolgens was het tijd voor het echte werk en confronteerden de onderzoekers het algoritme met een dataset met daarin gegevens van het resterende derde deel van het maanoppervlak. Het algoritme bleek zo goed te presteren dat het bijna twee keer zoveel kraters identificeerde als mensen hadden ontdekt. In totaal stuitte de KI op zo’n 6000 nog niet eerder geïdentificeerde kraters op de maan.
Hulp van machines “Er zijn tienduizenden nog niet geïdentificeerde kleine kraters op de maan en het is niet realistisch dat wij mensen die allemaal kunnen vinden,” stelt onderzoeker Ari Silburt. “Machines kunnen ons daarbij helpen en nog niet ontdekte aanwijzingen over de totstandkoming van ons zonnestelsel onthullen.” Omdat de maan geen atmosfeer, platentektoniek en nauwelijks water herbergt, is er nauwelijks sprake van erosie en dat betekent dat kraters amper door de tand des tijds worden aangetast en er op het oppervlak van de maan tot wel 4 miljard jaar oude kraters zichtbaar zijn. Deze kunnen meer vertellen over wat zich allemaal in het jonge zonnestelsel heeft afgespeeld.
De onderzoekers hopen hun algoritme de komende tijd nog verder te verbeteren. Het kan leiden tot de ontdekking van nog meer kraters op de maan. Tevens kan het wellicht losgelaten worden op afbeeldingen van andere hemellichamen, zoals Ceres, Mars en ijzige manen van Jupiter en Saturnus.
KIM'S WILDE THEORY Kim Wilde reveals she’s a changed person after seeing a ‘very, very massive’ UFO hovering over her garden
KIM'S WILDE THEORYKim Wilde reveals she’s a changed person after seeing a ‘very, very massive’ UFO hovering over her garden
The 57-year-old singer says she will never be the same again
By Dan Cain and Natasha Rigler
EIGHTIES pop star Kim Wilde has revealed she is a changed person after spotting a “very, very massive sphere” in the sky.
Kim, 57, has opened up about the exact moment she claims she saw a UFO and has admitted she has not stopped looking for extraterrestrials since.
REX FEATURES
Kim claims she spotted a ‘very, very massive sphere’ in the sky doing‘extraordinary things’
Kim told the Daily Mirror: “It was some kind of sphere – no one knows how big, but my feeling was that it was very, very massive indeed – doing extraordinary things in the sky!
“I’m not quite the same person I was the day before to the day after, that’s for sure.”
The Kids In America singer added: “I do still keep a very active look in the sky for things. I’m always looking up at night.
“And if I happen to be outside, I’ll always wait for a few moments to see if there’s anything unusual before I go back in again.”
GETTY
The singer insists she is no longer the same person since her apparent UFO sighting
Kim first opened up about her alleged brush with UFOs in an interview last month and admitted she is terrified of being abducted by aliens.
The singer – who is set of release her first music since 1995, an album appropriately called Here Come The Aliens – said she saw “massive lights” hovering over her Hertfordshire home in 2009.
Kim told Attitude magazine: “There were a couple of massive lights just above the clouds, going backwards and forwards in an extraordinary way.
“Quite a lot of people witnessed them, it made the local papers.”
REX FEATURES
Kim says two giant lights swooped out of the sky above her back garden
Kim sold 10 million albums and had a global chart hit with Kids In America in 1981.
She also told the publication: “I said to my husband that maybe the captain was a big Kim Wilde fan and wanted to know where I live.
REX FEATURES
Kim in her 80s heyday. She had a global hit with Kids In America
“I’m worried he’s going to beam me up and I’ll have to sing Kids in America to him for the rest of my life.”
Kim added: “I believe they’re here already or visiting, watching us.
“I haven’t gone loopy, I just can’t stop thinking about it.”
Ever wish E.T. would phone your home? The scientists at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute do. They seek unnatural variations in light and radio waves that may indicate alien civilizations. Some scientists even hope to send signals of our own out to the black, but it’s not easy to be seen and heard over all the stars, asteroids, and interstellar dust. We don’t have beacons powerful enough to reach the whole universe, nor receivers capable of monitoring the entire expanse. Other civilizations might, but there’s no way to tell until they finally hail us. All we know is how far our strongest signals could travel. Here’s where we’re searching—and where we fall short.
Don't blink
To keep an eye out for distant lasers that could head toward our neighborhood, we have to watch the entire sky. SETI plans to put 96 cameras at 12 sites across the world to monitor for flashes as brief as a millisecond or less. Shine on, aliens.
Atmosphere is key.
John Kuehn
Start simple
Life doesn’t have to be intelligent. By looking for planets with out-of-whack atmospheres (like ours, with its imbalance of oxygen and methane), we could figure out what worlds may have developed life. That narrows the search for interstellar smarties.
Laser
If aliens use light-propelled spacecraft—like those proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot program—we might spot flashes from across the galaxy. We could also shine a laser of our own, hoping to strike where an alien is paying attention.
“We joke that the first message extraterrestrials will pick up is I Love Lucy,” says SETI’s Jill Tarter—it was among the first big broadcasts. But Lucy’s light-speed antics are pretty garbled by now. If whatever signal remains has reached anyone, it clearly hasn’t inspired a reply.
Radio nowhere
You can make a radio outburst travel farther by narrowing its beam. Radio telescopes send out pointed broadcasts that should persist halfway to the center of the galaxy (we’re near the edge) before blending into the noise of cosmic radiation.
This article was originally published in the Spring 2018 Intelligence issue of Popular Science.
No one really knows what aliens look like, but we all have similar ideas about them. It’s often a creature with a big head, long arms and legs, and big, buggy eyes. We see these common images of aliens depicted in movies, books, and on TV shows — which are made by us.
Science fiction stories often explore the relationship between humans and aliens. So we find extraterrestrial creatures endowed with relatable human features. According to Charley Henley, a VFX supervisor who worked on Ridley Scott’s Alien series, “A lot of [Scott’s] designs are tied in with the human anatomy, and I think that is the common theme. We put a lot of humans into the aliens.” In our stories, we naturally anthropomorphize these creatures — so they end up looking, acting, and feeling just like us.
But when you talk to scientists actually looking for extraterrestrial life — and not imagining it — it’s a whole different story. Andrew Siemion, the director of SETI Research Center at UC Berkely, believes that if there’s any life out in space that’s similar to humans, they’d be using technology in a similar way as we do. So he and his colleagues conduct astronomy experiments to detect signs of technology out in space. But that doesn’t mean he has a better idea of what these creatures would look like. He said:
It’s science fiction. I mean, as of now, hopefully, someday we will detect life on another world — maybe many examples of life on many worlds — and then we can have more accurate science fiction. But I think as of now, a guess of a science fiction novelist is as good as a scientist. Science fiction is one expression of our profound sense of awe and wonder about whether we are alone in the universe.
Watch the video above to see how we humans perceive aliens and how that shapes our imagination of life beyond our planet.
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FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Pentagon building in Washington, June 15, 2005.
A video reportedly showing a Navy aircraft encounter with a UFO has been made public. This comes after the Pentagon acknowledged that it has shelved an initiative aimed at identifying unknown objects in aerospace.
The video, titled "Go Fast," was released by To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science, an organization leading to studying UFOs. It was co-founded by former Blink182 musician Tom DeLonge and includes a former head of the now-defunct Pentagon program.
According to CNN, the footage was taken by a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet who witnessed the "high-speed flight of an unidentified aircraft." It was obtained from the Department of Defense' archives using a Freedom of Information Act request.
The most interesting part of the footage according to analysts is the unidentified object's lack of a heat signature. This suggests a lack of a conventional propulsion engine which means it is using a different technology to power its flight.
According to the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, the video was taken as part of a Pentagon program studying Unidentified Flying Objects. Originally classified when it launched in 2007, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program was officially shut down in 2012. However, some elements of the program remained active to this day
To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science has been very active in recent years trying to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. Many of its members are former intelligence agents who are now dedicated to acquiring evidence and releasing them to the public.
One of these is Luis Elizondo, former head of the Pentagon UFO program. According to him, the video represents what is likely part of a much larger cache of material the Pentagon obtained from its now defunct program.
"There is far more compelling evidence that I was privy to," Elizondo said, "I think you're looking at the tip of the iceberg."
The Pentagon has declined to comment about the released UFO footage.
Pilots have been left confused and stunned after spotting a huge ‘UFO’ passing over their passenger planes – and an audio recording has captured every word of their conversation.
Pilots shocked by huge UFO passing planes
The planes were travelling between the Sonoran Desert National Monument and the New Mexico Border in the US on February 24, when a pilot asked over the radio whether the ‘traffic’ has passed above them.
The N71PG Learjet aircraft was flying at around 37,000ft, but when the controller responded ‘negative’ (meaning there was nothing to his knowledge that should have been in the sky) both realised something was amiss.
“Something did,” the pilot replies in the audio above.
Pilots were left shocked when something passed above them.
Photo: Getty
To add to the confusion, another pilot can be heard joining the conversation and says “a UFO”.
The official audio recordings from the FAA of Albuquerque Centre air traffic control, were obtained and revealed by website The Drive.
But that wasn’t the end of the encounter.
Two pilots claimed it was a UFO.
Photo: Getty
Minutes later the controller told another flight, travelling behind the original jet to keep a lookout, which left the captain of the American Airlines flight confused and asking “if anything passes over us?”
The controller confirmed the previous encounter and repeated the request.
And in another shock, a minute later the airbus responded: “Yeah something just passed over us.”
The exchange all happened within six minutes but surprisingly the incident was not investigated further, reports The Express.
On St. Patrick’s Day in 2006, the police in Nanuet, New York assumed that the high volume of calls reporting UFOs was just the result of too much partying on this festive day. In all fairness to the police, with the amount of green beer and other alcohol consumed every March 17, it wasn’t an entirely unreasonable assumption. However, this sighting involved numerous sober witnesses, and there is also a curious history of mass sightings on St. Patrick’s Day in the Hudson Valley of New York stretching back 35 years.
Has our government been scheduling test flights of exotic aircraft on March 17, realizing that eyewitness reports will be deemed unreliable? Perhaps there are clever ETs who are aware of the holiday—and human drinking habits—and therefore decide that it is the perfect day for some low-level reconnaissance? Or, is it merely an odd coincidence?
When examining the NUFORC database, it quickly becomes evident that, historically, March is not an active month for sightings. Compared to the warmer months, in general, March has just a small fraction of the reported cases. The earliest St. Patrick’s Day report in the database was in 1969, in Odessa, Washington, where a “brilliant metallic, glowing disc-shaped craft with red & blue lights in a circle at the bottom” was seen by over a dozen witnesses for over ten minutes.
Unfortunately, when it comes to one of the most spectacular and pivotal St. Patrick’s Day mass sightings, both the NUFORC and MUFON databases are silent. Due, no doubt, to the fact that the number of reported cases is minuscule in comparison to the actual number of sightings, there are no reports for March 17, 1983; the date that the famous Hudson Valley wave had its first major event. A massive triangular or boomerang-shaped craft hovered over a very busy highway, Interstate 84, stopping traffic and bathing onlookers in a brilliant, white light.
Numerous witnesses that night in towns along I-84 in New York and western Connecticut saw the massive, football field-sized, silent craft hovering or moving extremely slowly. Mesmerized by the size of the object and the multicolored lights, people watched for many minutes as the craft descended so low it was no more than ten feet above the treetops at times. While witnesses ingrained every detail of the spectacular craft in their memories, the “official” explanation for the mass sighting was a formation of aircraft—just some fun-loving pilots playing a prank on St. Patrick’s Day revelers. (It goes without saying that witnesses were insulted and infuriated by this excuse,)
Depiction of Hudson Valley UFO created by Michael Schratt. (Credit: Michael Schratt)
Depiction of Hudson Valley UFO created by Michael Schratt.
(Credit: Michael Schratt)
Another March 17 mass sighting occurred in the area in 1988, and this time, NUFORC did receive three reports from Westchester County, NY, summarized below:
Yonkers, NY: “We saw this ENORMOUS craft hovering silently in the sky. This object was at least the size of an aircraft carrier and about 7 or 8 stories tall.” Numerous witnesses watched as the silent, oval craft, described as being like “polished aluminum or stainless steel” with multicolored lights, passed below the top floor of an apartment building, descending to no more than about 150 feet above the ground. Later, green lights in a kite-shaped formation were in the area, but they had a distinct humming sound. One witness called the FBI and was told that “Marine choppers were on maneuvers over Yonkers that night.” The witness stated that perhaps the green lights had been the Marine helicopters, but that certainly didn’t explain the shiny, metallic oval craft. The witness also added: “What the heck were Marines doing flying over Yonkers, when the closest base at the time was 1.5 hours away in New Jersey?”
Ossining, NY: About 20 miles to the north of the city of Yonkers, a far more frightened family of witnesses also watched a large, egg-shaped craft. According to the person reporting the incident, “It was like a nightmare. It was so low, on top of the trees, and you could hear the swishing sound from the leaves. It made a humming sound, big, size of a football field. It was turning all colors, bright pink, blue, white, green. I thought this is it! We are finished! It’s the end of the world.”
Briarcliff Manor and Pleasantville, NY: “Extremely large craft. Multiple colored lights. Was outside on the porch when it began to get warmer and brighter. All the lights in the house went out, and then we saw the object over the house. It hovered there for about 20 minutes. And then it just zipped away.”
This craft—or one that was similar—was also seen that night throughout Rockland County, NY, which is on the west side of the river, across from Westchester County. I can trust the integrity of at least two of the multiple eyewitnesses to the sightings which took place from Stony Point to Pearl River, as in an odd twist it turns out I know both of them. When recently researching newspaper archives for information about this sighting, I was surprised when I found a local article with testimony from someone with whom I attended college.
The other witness, who was an even greater surprise, came forward when I was writing my first UFO book—my husband! I hadn’t yet met him in 1988, and he didn’t share his experience with me until I was well into the project, when he casually asked if I was going to include his sighting, to which I believe my response was something to the effect of, “Say what!?”
These instances just go to prove that you never know who has experienced something strange. I interviewed another witness to a St. Patrick’s Day UFO in Yonkers in the late 1980s. While it very well may have taken place in 1988, the witness could not recall for sure, and the shape of the craft was very different, so I mention this case separately.
The witness began her description by stating emphatically, “NO, I was not drinking,” as that was the immediate reaction to any sighting taking place on March 17. She described the craft as being “silent, as big as two football fields” with “bright green lights” (which she admitted seemed appropriately Irish!).
Rather than being scared, however, she said that “to be honest, it was beautiful…I loved it.” This large, eight-sided craft hovered in place for a full 20 minutes, and “it was low enough to see all the mechanical detail underneath it.” The proximity and duration of the sighting allowed her to sketch the craft with its unique structural “wiggly lines” in the gunmetal surface, and the specific placement of the numerous, brilliant green lights.
Sketch of object witnessed in Yonkers.
(Credit: Linda Zimmerman)
Finally, we return to the details of the 2006 St. Patrick’s Day sighting, which appears quite similar to the 1988 event. The witness and his family saw a large oval with multicolored lights approaching slowly. Of special interest to me in this case, as I have previously written about dogs’ reactions to UFOs, is that the witness noticed that “Dogs started barking all over the neighborhood.” The family watched for 20 minutes as the craft ever-so-slowly passed overhead. Once it had gone, one of the witnesses called the police, who stated they were “getting tons of calls” and assumed “everyone had a lot to drink this St. Patrick’s Day.”
Also similar to the 1988 sightings, there appeared to be a conventional aircraft response to the unusual craft, as the witness reported that for “the next four hours the sky was full of helicopters with searchlights,” although whether or not these helicopters were military or civilian was not indicated. Unfortunately, this case also has something in common with the 1983 sightings, as despite this being one, solid object that made no noise, “The newspapers reported the next day it was likely ultralights in formation.”
There are numerous other St. Patrick’s Day UFO reports from across the country over the past several decades, but none to compare with the three Hudson Valley mass sightings. While the craft varied from triangular or boomerang-shaped, to oval and egg-shaped, to the eight-sided vehicle with green lights, they were all enormous, were brightly lit, and didn’t appear to care if they were seen. In fact, by hovering over major highways and densely-populated towns and cities just north of Manhattan, they most definitely seem to have wanted to be witnessed by as many people as possible.
In closing, the question must be asked: Were these intentionally planned flights by our government, or extraterrestrials, to allow so many people the opportunity to glimpse these remarkable craft on St. Patrick’s Day, or was it all just the luck of the Irish?
NA ECUADOR NU OOK VREEMDE VERSCHIJNING BOVEN THAILAND ( VIDEO )
NA ECUADOR NU OOK VREEMDE VERSCHIJNING BOVEN THAILAND ( VIDEO )
Onlangs verscheen er een vreemd lichtgevend "object" boven Ecuador dat minutenlang bleef hangen en waarvoor niemand een verklaring heeft.
Iets dergelijks doet zich nu voor boven Thailand en wederom staren mensen met open mond naar de lucht en vragen zich af wat ze daar zien.
Er doen zich de laatste weken wel heel vreemde verschijnselen voor in de lucht. Zo was er onlangs iets heel bijzonders te zien boven Ecuador.
Voor hen die vergeten zijn waar het in Ecuador ook al weer over ging, hier nog even die bewuste video:
Op 14 maart maakt een jongeman uit Thailand die bij een vriend achterop de scooter zit heel bijzondere opnames die veel overeenkomsten vertonen met die uit Ecuador.
De volgende foto's zijn door deze jongeman gedeeld op Facebook en net zoals in Ecuador weet niemand waar we hier mee te maken hebben.
Alhoewel niet exact hetzelfde zijn er zoveel overeenkomsten dat men al snel aanneemt dat ze "tot dezelfde familie" van verschijnselen behoren.
What kind of natural disaster do you fear the most? Hurricane? Flood? Tornado? Mudslide? Solar flare? Zombie apocalypse? Elections? Your answer probably depends in part on where you live, how much news you watch and what was the last disaster movie you saw. A new survey polled Americans on which natural disaster they feared the most and the shocking (was it lightning?) answer defied the odds and blew away (wind storms?) the competition. The natural disaster Americans fear the most is …
Not so fast. While you’re thinking about which type of disaster YOU fear the most, let’s look at the survey. It was conducted by Sperling’s Best Places, which is run by Bert Sperling, the “Guy Who Picks The Best Places” who has lived in Florida, California, Alaska and Oregon and since 1999 has run a free site where he provides and categorizes data on thousands of metropolitan areas, cities and neighborhoods. The Sperling site has a comprehensive database that allows users to rank places in a wide variety of ways in order to help people find a preferable place to live and help city officials improve their quality of life, fix problems and move their locations up the lists.
If the “Most feared natural disasters in America” list was based strictly on number of deaths from 1974 to 2004 (a survey by University of South Carolina researchers), the answer would be heat or drought (3,906), followed by severe weather (thunderstorms – 3,762), winter weather (3,612), flooding 2.788), tornadoes (2.317), lightning (2,261), coastal storm surges (456), hurricanes (304), geophysical disasters (earthquakes – 302), mass movement (land and mudslides – 170) and wildfire (84).
The numbers historically and worldwide show a different pattern. Since 1900, the deadliest natural disasters worldwide are the 1931 China floods (1,000,000–4,000,000), the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (280,000), the 1920 Haiyuan (China) earthquake (273.400), the 1970 Bhola (Bangladesh) cyclone (250,000-500,000), then 1976 Tangshan (China) earthquake (242,000–655,000), Typhoon Nina (China) (229,000) and the 2010 Haiti earthquake (160.000). The list continues with weather and earthquakes in the majority, but the nearest to the U.S. is the Haitian quake of 2010.
However, this survey is not about facts but fears. The Wichita Eagle reported that, while a variety of weather-induced disasters dominate the death list in the U.S., Sperling’s Best Places found that 21.1 percent of Americans fear earthquakes more than any other natural disaster, followed (but not closely) tornadoes (17.6 percent), wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, droughts, wind and hail.
“Earthquakes worry us for a number of reasons, thanks to their violent nature and the psychological terror of the earth moving beneath our feet. They strike quickly and without warning. Storms, on the other hand, are tracked by meteorologists and can be prepared for or avoided by evacuation.”
They also kill more people by the hundreds of thousands in poor areas because of poor construction, poor rescue and evacuation plans and poor emergency care. That’s not the case in earthquake-prone areas in the U.S. like California, which has been planning for the big one since the last big one. However, human-induced earthquakes from fracking are becoming more common in Oklahoma, Kansas and other states with high levels of usage of this natural gas extraction technique. While this may make quakes more predictable, these areas are better prepared for tornadoes and weather than geophysical disasters.
Is news of catastrophic earthquake and earthquake-induced tsunami destruction around the world causing Americans to have an unnatural fear of quakes at home? Is the increase in fracking-induced quakes causing it? Is it just the unpredictability of quakes?
Have you changed your mind about moving to Kansas, Oklahoma or anyplace near Yellowstone?
Scientists have unveiled details of its Hammer (Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response) project, an eight tonne ship which it hopes would be able to deflect a giant space rock on a collision course with Earth
The US space agency believes this planet is already overdue a huge asteroid strike, and various programmes across the world due their best to keep track of dangerous lumps of rock as they hurtle through space.
On last year, a 100-foot asteroid named 2112TC4, passed within 27,000 of Antartica last year – a mere whisker, in astronomical terms.
In plans published in the academic journal Acta Astronautica, Nasa and the National Nuclear Security Administration calculated the time and payload needed to move or destroy the 1,600-foot-wide asteroid Bennu, which has a 1 in 2,700 chance of hitting the earth in the mid-22nd century.
NASA
A sufficiently large asteroid could wipe out all life on earth
The rocket would aim to protect our planet from harmful impacts
Nasa has already dispatched a probe to Bennu to take samples and has been monitoring the asteroid since it was discovered in 1999.
Although the chances of a collision are relatively remote, Bennu is still considered as an NEO, or Near Earth Object.
If it hit the planet it would do so with the force of 1,450 megatons of TNT – approximately 100 times the strength of the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Dante Lauretta, professor of Planetary Science in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, said Bennu’s impact would release “three times more energy than all nuclear weapons detonated throughout history”.
He said: “The impact would release energy equivalent to 1,450 megatons of TNT.
“For comparison, the fission bombs used in World War II had an energy release of roughly 20 kilotons of TNT each and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the Russian Tsar Bomba, had a yield of 50 megatons."
In a separate development, earlier this week a team of Russian researchers from Rosatom, the state nuclear energy corporation, and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), announced they had constructed and blown up tiny asteroids in the lab to calculate how much power was required.
Using laser pulses to simulate the effect of a nuclear bomb they found that to eliminate a 650-foot wide asteroid, the blast would need to deliver the energy equivalent of three megatons of TNT – equivalent to 200 Hiroshimas.
Study co-author Vladimir Yufa, an associate professor at the departments of Applied Physics and Laser Systems and Structured Materials, MIPT, said: “At the moment, there are no asteroid threats, so our team has the time to perfect this technique for use later in preventing a planetary disaster.
“We’re also looking into the possibility of deflecting an asteroid without destroying it and hope for international engagement.”
“We’re from the government and we’re here to help protect you from asteroids and space debris.”
If that doesn’t make you feel better, this might … or might not. As soon as NASA announced it plans to blow up dangerous incoming asteroids with a nuclear HAMMER, Russia countered with its own plan to destroy them with a giant laser beam. Meanwhile, a private company says it is developing a spacecraft armed with a giant harpoon that will shoot and haul in large and dangerous pieces of space debris. Would this work on an asteroid? When it comes to guarding us from space dangers, do we trust the public sector or the private sector. Or are we doomed either way?
If it seems like there’s a monthly announcement that we just missed getting hit by an asteroid that no one saw coming, you’re not far off. While NASA and other space organizations are tracking many large Near Earth Objects (NEO), more are slipping through the telescopic cracks. And even if they know it’s coming straight at us, no one has demonstrated how they’re going to protect us, despite Hollywood’s best attempts to come up with good ideas starring Bruce Willis. NASA hears your concerns and recently presented a paper with the National Nuclear Security Administration on how it could nuke and destroy the 1,600-foot-wide asteroid Bennu, which is scheduled to become a Really Near and Maybe Direct Hit Object in 2135.
The nuclear asteroids beater will be called HAMMER (Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response) but it would be the asteroid doing the hammering. The plan, published in Acta Astronautica, is for launching a number of 9-meter-long nuclear projectiles into the space in front of Bennu but far enough away from Earth that we (well, our future we’s) are safe when Bennu crashes into the nukes and disintegrates. Just in case, the nukes can also be detonated from Earth. It’s expected to take 7.4 years from the “go” signal to the “goodbye Bennu” conclusion, so it’s a good thing we have time … unless another big asteroid shows up unexpectedly.
Fortunately, Russian scientists at ROSATOM (the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation) and MIPT (the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology) are already blowing up asteroids with lasers. You probably haven’t seen huge flashes of light in the sky because so far they’ve only been able to destroy tiny (10 mm/.4 inch) model asteroids in a lab. Their paper, published this week in the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, describes how much laser power it would take to destroy a 200-meter-wide asteroid – that’s smaller than Bennu but ten times wider than the Chelyabinsk asteroid whose atmospheric explosion alone injured 1,000 people. A laser with the power of 3 megatons of TNT should do it. However, they don’t have anything near that yet.
Maybe we need to talk to Airbus, which announced it is testing (at its space center in Stevenage – pictures here) a 3ft (95 cm) missile attached to a cable that can be fired from its mothership at 55 mph using 1,500 G of force to travel 100 feet and penetrate a chunk of space debris and then be reeled in with said debris attached. The tough part is figuring out where to hit the debris so the harpoon sticks. Airbus has a target in mind – the 8-ton Envisat weather satellite which stopped working in 2012. Another test is scheduled for later this year and this space harpoon could be ready soon after that.
Unfortunately, the harpoon is probably far too small for asteroids.
We live in an age where reliance on computers, machines, and artificial intelligence is becoming stronger and more commonplace, inescapable to the point that society would cease to function as we know it without these things. As we progress on into the future there is every indication that these artificial intelligences will continue to evolve to the point that they equal us and perhaps even surpass us. Far from strictly the realm of science fiction, this is almost a certainty at the rate we are progressing, and it is at the stage now where we are learning that we are perhaps unprepared for what we will encounter in this hazy, unexplored domain lying before us. At least one group of researchers has realized that we are approaching a time when we will be faced with advanced AI in a realistic human form, and they have gone about testing how we will deal with this through a bizarre series of experiments in which computers basically possess humans.
When we talk to someone, how does their appearance and demeanor affect how much we listen to what they actually say? This was one of the questions that drove a group of British researchers at the London School of Economics to start a truly bizarre experiment to create what they call an “echoborg.” It sounds quite sinister, and perhaps the future implications of it might be, but the main premise involves simply using a chatbot with relatively advanced AI in one room, and a living breathing volunteer in the other, who wears an earpiece attached to the bot and simply repeats everything that comes through, essentially becoming the computer’s mouthpiece. In a sense, the human becomes “possessed” by the AI, and it is every bit as surreal as you might imagine.
Researchers wanted to know if the appearance of an AI would affect how it was perceived, and got the idea for the experiment from the 19th Century play, Cyrano de Bergerac, in which the very smart and witty, but physically unattractive De Bergerac uses his handsome but not very bright rival Christian as a mouthpiece, feeding him what to say and do in order to woo the beautiful object of his desire, Roxanne. The psychologist Stanley Milgram picked up on this idea and tried to explore it through experiments using what he called “cyranoids,” which were people who were told and dictated what to say or do through earpieces by a person in another room. In this manner the cyranoid then talks to someone who is unaware that the one really speaking is a completely different person. The idea was to see whether the physical perception of the person someone was talking to could shape the way they interacted with them, and it resoundingly did.
Interestingly, it was found that whole conversations could go by without the person ever realizing that the one in front of them was not who they were really talking to. It is indeed rather a creepy concept, but Milgram took it even further by trying extreme combinations of people, such as an old man speaking through a child, a man speaking through a woman, and vice-versa. In every case it was found that people were actually shockingly poor at determining if an imposter was speaking through the person they were talking through, and just went along with whatever they said no matter how much of a disconnect there was between what they were hearing and who was saying it. Even when people in the experiment were made aware of the fact that the speaker was not who they appeared to be, the illusion nevertheless still had an effect on their perceptions of what was being said. In short, the physical form of the speaker had a great power over the conversation, and there was the sobering realization that appearance seemed to be more of a factor in people’s perceptions of the speaker than the content of what they actually said.
It was these experiments that led to the work on echoborgs, which take it all a step further still by making the third party not a real person at all, but rather an artificial intelligence. They wanted to know what would happen if someone were to talk to a computer speaking by way of a human go-between, basically a human body with a robot mind for all intents and purposes. Would it change the way they interacted with or accepted the AI? Would anyone even realize they were talking to a computer at all? A researcher on the project by the name of Kevin Corti explained of the unusual project:
Most of the time we encounter AI today, it’s in a very mechanical interface. This was a way of doing it so that people actually believe they are encountering another person. We are very long way away from a perfectly human interface, but we can leapfrog that and put the machine mind in a human body, to see what happens.
And what happens is fairly weird indeed, with the experiments using the echoborgs yielding some surprising and intriguing results. In cases where the subject speaking to the echoborg is unaware that they are talking to a computer, it seems that they are poor at catching on to the charade, it they even figure it out at all. They continue talking despite any quirks or inconsistencies in the contents or flow of communication, and even after whole conversations don’t realize that anything is amiss or that they are basically chatting to a chatbot. Corti said of this remarkable phenomenon:
The vast majority of participants never picked up that they were speaking to the words of the computer program. They just assumed the person had some problem, where their social inhibitions had been diminished. Never for a minute did they think they were talking to a hybrid.
On the other hand, when the subject is told that they may or may not be talking to an AI, similar to the Turing Test, they are much more wary and readily able to discern the computer from the real person. In this case there was a set of expectations to be met in the mind of the subject for being human, and they were less forgiving and more suspicious of odd sentence patterns or strange things said. This could have repercussions on how we deal with sophisticated AI in the future, when we are likely to have more and more human-looking androids. It seems that with a human we are able to be very forgiving with idiosyncrasies and oddities in conversation, but we are primed to be very critical and even dismissive of what an AI says. When confronted with the fact that they had been speaking with an AI, most people were deeply uncomfortable, repulsed even, with the thought that they had been speaking with an AI through a human being deeply unsettling on an almost primal level. Corti said of this and its impact on our future dealings with robots, no matter how human they look, thus:
We might have AI’s intelligent beyond belief but our knowledge of them being non-human might limit our desire to interact with them in a human way. As artificial intelligence starts to get close to pass for human, it’s not just uncanny, it’s awkward. There’s a kind of awkward valley.
If this can happen with the relatively crude AI and chatbots we have now, imagine how it will be when artificial intelligence advances to the point where it can effectively and perfectly emulate a human being. How can we expect to approach, react to, and interact with these entities? Will we accept them and converse with them, or will we be instinctively repelled away, their existence just as alien as something from another world? These are things that we don’t have the answers for at the moment, and which Corti and his research group are trying to probe at the edges of. This seems to be a very real challenge facing us as we move on into a new world of ever more advanced robots and AI, and how people think of these intelligences they are interacting with will have a big part to play in how they are integrated into society as a whole. Another researcher on the project named Alex Gillespie has said of their experiments looking into this:
I think it really gets us ahead of the curve. If you look at history, we think it’s powered by technology – but it’s not. It’s public opinion. They will decide if these things are on the streets as police officers, so a huge amount of work needs to be done to see how we relate to it.
It is certainly a complex and challenging problem we are facing as we move on into new, uncharted realms of technology for which there is no historical precedent. As we approach an age when AI will be advanced to the point that it is indistinguishable from a human and the appearance of these machines approaches a close approximation of us, these are important things to think about. After all, how would you feel talking to a machine? How would you feel after being confronted with a human serving as a mouthpiece for one, as in the echoborg experiments? Would you be filled with wonder and awe, or a sense of unease or disgust? It seems that the time will come when we speak with AI on a regular basis, but how we will deal with that and react to it is a road foggier and less defined. The implications of this advance into ever more human machines presents a conundrum for us on just what being human is. We are in uncharted waters here, and we will likely not know the repercussions of our inexorable push into the frontiers of technology until we reach that point.
In December 2017, the Tom DeLonge-fronted To The Stars Academy (TTSA) released two videos it claimed showed U.S. military aircraft encountering unidentified aerial phenomenon. Around the same time, The New York Times released a report detailing a massive Pentagon program aimed at collecting evidence of UFOs and related phenomenon. The videos became mainstream news for a while, prompting warnings from veteran UFO researchers about trusting these “official” sources.
Things got more interesting earlier this month when TTSA released a third video they claimed showed yet another encounter between an F/A-18 and a fast-moving object flying above the ocean off America’s east coast. While these videos have become some of the most talked-about pieces of UFO evidence in recent history, a wide range of sources from across the web are raising doubts about their authenticity. A research academy fronted by a former pop-punk singer wouldn’t lie to us, would it?
Of course not.
In a reddit post titled “Buckle up boys – you’re about to get learnt”, user Blu3Skies lays out evidence claiming that TTSA’s latest two video releases could be hoaxes. The post was submitted to the r/ConspiracyII forum, which split off of r/Conspiracy after it became flooded with, uh, let’s call it “political” content. In the post, Blu3Skies cites the fact that the heads-up display overlaid on top of both videos seems to display the same PRF code, or pulse repetition frequency, a unique numerical identifier assigned to specific aircraft for specific sorties:
Why would 2 F18s have matching PRF codes on different coasts even if at different time frames? They wouldn’t. Plain and simple. For years I used the same PRF code overseas without it ever changing once as did every major air asset I worked with. As a military aviator I find this fishy as f*** now- something doesn’t add up here.
Other reddit users noted that those codes could have been altered after being declassified to make them appropriate for public release. They are clearly spliced together from longer pieces of footage, after all, implying that there could be still much in the videos concerning flight formations or capabilities theDepartment of Defense doesn’t want known. A spokesperson for the Department of Defense issued a terse, informationless statement in the way only the DoD can, stating merely “The Department of Defense did not release those videos. I cannot confirm their authenticity. I don’t have any additional info to provide.”
Of course, the possibility remains that these videos could be hoaxes altogether, designed to raise just enough public interest to justify…well, something. Political news outlet The Hill ran an editorial this week claiming that the “only thing Defense’s UFO probe proves is power of political favors.” The authors point out that the main recipient of the Pentagon’s $22 million Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program was none other than UFO-obsessed aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. The Las Vegas-based Bigelow just so happens to be a major campaign contributor to Nevada senator and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who was instrumental in securing funding for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program. Was this Pentagon-funded program merely a way to return the favor to a major source of funding using taxpayer dollars? It’s possible, and happens all the time.
Bigelow also wants to put inflatable hotels in space over the next ten years.
Other skeptics and analysts have weighed in claiming that based on their appearance, the objects are most likely balloonsor flocks of birds misidentified by pilots in the moment. Given the grainy and somewhat indistinct infrared footage in the videos, it’s difficult to tell exactly what the objects are. These claims make me wonder, though: would we be able to recognize and identify truly anomalous phenomenon we’ve never encountered the first time we saw them, or would our minds reach for familiar experiences and objects like balloons to help us make sense of them?
One of the most likely explanations for the release of these videos and the increased attention unidentified aerial phenomena are receiving in the mainstream press is that someone or perhaps something here on Earth has developed technological capabilities which have surpassed those of the West. Could China or Russia have developed next-generation propulsion methods unlike anything we’ve ever seen? If so, calling them UFOs and raising public support for increased funding in aerospace research is a great way to boost military spending without frightening the public or coming off too militaristic. Then again, these videos could be evidence of new American air technology unbeknownst to the public released by the DoD’s as a means of rattling their sabers in a public setting.
But maybe, just maybe, these videos could be proof of something truly anomalous and mysterious. Could there be unknown extremely advanced civilizations living deep within the Earth or under the seas operating sophisticated aircraft up here on the surface? Or could we actually be witnessing contact with superior extraterrestrial civilizations? Could these be evidence of some unknown type of matter or energy passing through Earth as it zooms through the universe? Who knows. With so little to go on, any guess is as good as any. But it’s going to take a lot more than a few short videos to convince the public of whatever is happening here.
Astronomers at the Parkes Observatory in Australia have observed the brightest fast radio burst known to science. The signal was detected first on March 1st, then again on March 9th and 11th, with the March 9th signal breaking the record for strongest known deep space radio signal. All three of the signals have a high signal-to-noise ratio and their orientation is not thought to be vulnerable to interference from terrestrial sources – meaning they have a powerful, localized origin. Scientists recently detected a “rapid fire” burst coming from a separate radio source just a few months ago. Could this strange pattern of radio bursts lend credence to the theories that these signals might be attempts at intergalactic communication?
While it’s far too tempting to believe (or maybe just hope) that these signals could be transmissions sent by distant alien civilizations, astronomers are much more cautious. The prevailing theory of many astronomers at the moment is that these radio bursts are caused by neutron star emissions or perhaps released by stars with powerful magnetic fields being ripped apart by black holes. Still, there is much room for speculation given how little we actually know about FRBs. Will astronomers ever crack the mystery of these unexplained deep space radio signals?
A radio telescope at the Parkes Observatory.
Unfortunately, we’ve only known about these fast radio bursts for ten years or so, and their rarity and unpredictability means data is scarce; only 33 confirmed FRB sources are currently known to astronomers. Even if these new signals didn’t break the record for signal strength, the detection of three separate fast radio bursts in one month is pretty unusual on its own. Could this have been an attempt at getting our attention? It surely worked.
However, it could also be that astronomers are merely getting better at detecting and identifying them, and all the recent attention FRBs have gotten means astronomers are likely searching for them much more carefully. Still, every new discovery puts us closer to discovering the truth of these mysterious radio signals. Which most likely will be a banal astrophysical phenomenon which further beats into our caveman skulls the fact that we’re desperately alone out here in the vacuum of space.
Merriam-Webster.com defines self-awareness as: “An awareness of one’s own personality or individuality.” That certain applies to us. But, it may not apply to the Men in Black. Indeed, I have more than a few reports on file which suggest the MIB are completely lacking in self-awareness. But, how could that be? Let’s take a look. First and foremost, it’s important to note that the MIB are not regular people. They may well not be people at all. In fact, I seriously doubt they are. The Men in Black movie-trilogy presented the MIB as agents of government. They’re not. The overwhelming majority of witnesses describe the MIB as looking very weird. They are pale, gaunt and cadaverous. They have bulging eyes that are semi-hidden by sunglasses. And they have the ability to control minds. But, there is something even stranger: it’s that lack of full self-awareness.
Peter Beckman is a man who had an encounter with a pair of Men in Black in the late 1960s. It was a mind-bending experience which led Beckman to say the following of the MIB who appeared on his doorstep, late one night, in Carmichael, California. He says of the encounter, which involved a friend of his too, Stephen Leeson:
“They were pale and sickly; their clothes hung real loose and they looked as though they might expire at any moment. They appeared to have either trouble breathing, or trouble even being. I don’t believe they said a thing. If they did, it has disappeared from memory. Very odd, indeed. I recall that, as I was waiting for them to speak, my mind was racing; should I try humor or invective? My general impression is that they were kind of confused, but just ever so slightly amused by the situation. It was as though they were waiting for us to speak. Their physical attitudes seemed to be waiting for some sort of answer, although no questions were asked.”
The entire affair seems to have been dominated by a degree of missing time and a sense of unreality. Indeed, both Peter and Stephen were on mescaline at the time – and both experienced the MIBs in the very same way. All of this suggests an altered state and a connection between the mescaline and the Men in Black, who clearly didn’t have full awareness of why they were there. Or even who or what they were. Curious, to say the least.
Film-maker Sean Kotz prepared a paper on the MIB for me a few years back. Its title: “Observations and Theories on the MIB Phenomenon.” Sean wrote: “One of the things that makes the Man in Black phenomenon so fascinating is the general social oddity of encounters. In everything from displaced fashions, to mechanical grammar and outdated expressions, to trying to drink Jello or fixating on ash trays and ink pens, the MIB seem just a little off.” Sean also said of the MIB: “They will stand or sit rigidly and seem unaware of social protocols, missing cues to sit down or relax.”
A few years back I interviewed a woman named Tina Vincent, who had an encounter with a Man in Black in the fall of 1989, while living in Minnesota at the time. After seeing a large, black, triangular-shaped UFO over her home late one night, Tina was soon visited by a tall and thin Man in Black. And, after knocking on her door very early the next morning, the MIB entered Tina’s home and warned her not to talk about her sighting of the previous night. Notably, Tina said she got a feeling that the gruesome figure in black seemed to be speaking as if he had memorized the words. She felt that the MIB didn’t actually know what it/he was saying. Rather, she explained, it was as if the words that came from the MIB’s mouth had been carefully learned by an actor. The word “programmed” popped up in my interview with Tina.
When it comes to the Men in Black, cases like these abound. There is no doubt that, at times, the MIB struggle to get their words out. They lack a full awareness of what is going on around them. But, they are very good at issuing threats – as if, as Tina noted, they were working to some kind of programming. Biological robots? Something akin to “The Agents” in The Matrix movies? Or, something else entirely? There are few, if any, hard answers.
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MYSTERIOUS Flashes are Coming From The MOON & We Don’t Know What They Are
MYSTERIOUS Flashes are Coming From The MOON & We Don’t Know What They Are
Since the first Apollo mission in 1969, astronauts have since reported strange flashes of light on the surface of the moon that seems to come out of nowhere.
Many scientists have made speculations about the cause and possible origins of the flashing lights but none of them have ever come close to being a definitive explanation.
However, there are some theories that may hold a little weight in explaining the occurrence of these strange flashes. So, in today’s video we are exploring some of the theories as we try to figure out these mysterious flashes of light on the surface of the moon.
THE COSMIC RAY CONUNDRUM
As mentioned earlier, astronauts since the first moon landing by Apollo 11 have reported sighting s of flashing lights on the moon’s surface. What’s strange about it is that they have reported these flashes even when their eyes are closed.
In one documentary, the lights were allegedly seen by several of the Apollo astronauts as they approached the moon.
An astronaut named Charles Duke shares his experience and narrates, “I’m having these light flashes. I’m seeing this, like, light flashing in my eyeballs.”
Astronauts who have encountered the lights would describe it as white flashes but there are others that have reported back after encountering lights in different colours such as blue and yellow; and in almost all instances, after they have come back home to earth, astronauts who have come across these lights would still see these flashes under various lighting conditions.
A theory explains why these astronauts are seeing what they were seeing and it all points towards cosmic rays.
Defined as a “highly energetic atomic nucleus or particle that travels through space at a speed close to that of light”, these rays – and how they interacted with the human optic nerve – are responsible for the eyes seeing strange lights in varying degrees of colours depending on how much radiation from cosmic rays the optic nerve has absorbed.
To test this theory, engineers put together an experiment involving a black box that can be worn as a helmet. The box would then have sensors that would detect the presence of cosmic rays.
Astronaut Charles Duke wore the helmet on his next mission and reported back seeing clusters of lights and white streaks the same time the box detected the presence of cosmic rays in his immediate environment.
THE LUNAR FROST FACTOR
Another theory explaining the flashes of lights is the existence of cold spots on the moon’s surface. These cold spots have been discovered to have layers of thin ice and frost that, when lights from the sun reflect on it, creates flashing or blinking that may trick the eye into believing that the lights are coming from the moon itself.
Revealed from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter or LRO, the data brought back helped researchers identify certain areas on the moon’s south pole that are cold enough to have frost formations. These formations are suspected to be located in craters where temperatures can drop to negative 163 degrees Celsius.
According to Elizabeth Fisher, the lead author of the research, “We found that the coldest place near the moon’s south pole is also the brightest places – brighter than we would expect from soil alone – and that might indicate the presence of surface frost.”
Furthermore, the research suggests that the icy deposits on the moon appear to be thin and in patches and may be mixed in with the moon’s soil and dust. Also, the evidence of frost suggests that the moon may either have water deposits for millions of years or may have been brought by colliding asteroids which may also explain how water was delivered on the surface of the earth.
Although, another hypothesis points out that hydrogen may have been present in a different form on the surface of the moon – but the idea that the moon could store water ice is still difficult to confirm and is being looked into for over 50 years now and since 2009 understanding the main composition of these icy deposits are still being studied and remains one of the main goals of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
THE TRANSIENT LUNAR PHENOMENON
This is a controversial area of study that mainly involves looking into bright sparks on the moon’s surface, discolorations, or misty patches of lunar fog.
Transient Lunar Phenomenon was a term created by Sir Patrick Moore in 1968 in order to give the sightings credence in the scientific community. However, these sightings have existed for more than a millennium according to studies on the subject.
One of the early records of this phenomenon was traced back to a mistake made in the 16th Century when early astronomers spotted a “daytime star” near the moon but were later on discovered to be the planet, Venus.
Fast forward to 1969 to a time when astronomy has made larger strides since the 16th Century; during the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong remarked that there was “an area that is considerably more illuminated than the surrounding area” of the moon.
After several studies conducted by NASA after the Apollo 11 mission, various photographs and images have been taken and produced in order to find the root cause of the strange lights.
Unfortunately, unlike the sudden flashes caused by asteroids on impact, the illumination on the surface of the moon appears to be much more subtle and harder to trace.
In a study conducted by the British Astronomical Association led by Jill Scrambler, the amount of data used between 1700 and 2010 were impressive and the studies conducted on each of them were extremely thorough as each data from different observers – from amateur to seasoned astronomers – were weighed for reliability.
The result was that at least 2% of the TLP sightings were considered “definitive” and unambiguous”. To put it simply: there really is something happening on the surface of the moon, we just aren’t sure what it is. To this very day, researchers are not clear as to what the real cause of TLPs is.
And, according to Jill Scrambler, when asked about the influence of solar cycles possibly influencing the illumination on the moon, “Although there are theories that might infer that TLP would be more frequent during high solar activity, from the sunspot cycle perspective there is no evidence to support this.”
Fortunately for scientists and astronomers continuing to conduct their research on the phenomenon, a new spacecraft called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was launched in the summer of 2013 to better explore the surface of the moon and provide clearer explanations about these mysterious illuminations and flashing lights.
Er gebeurt iets vreemds op de maan. We hebben alleen geen flauw idee wat het is
Er gebeurt iets vreemds op de maan. We hebben alleen geen flauw idee wat het is
Al sinds de eerste Apollomissie in 1969 maken astronauten melding van vreemde lichtflitsen op de maan die uit het niets lijken te komen.
Er is nog altijd geen sluitende verklaring voor deze mysterieuze flitsen. Het vreemde is dat sommige astronauten ze ook zagen terwijl hun ogen gesloten waren.
Sommige zagen witte lichtflitsen, terwijl andere blauw en geel licht zagen. Eenmaal terug op aarde konden de NASA-astronauten de flitsen nog steeds zien onder bepaalde omstandigheden.
Meer verlicht
Eén theorie stelt dat de flitsen te maken hebben met kosmische straling, terwijl de lichten volgens een andere theorie worden veroorzaakt door koude plekken op de maan, waar zonlicht reflecteert op een laagje ijs.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong merkte op dat er ‘een gebied was op de maan dat aanzienlijk meer verlicht was dan de omliggende regio’.
Uit diverse studies is gebleken dat er echt iets gebeurt op het maanoppervlak, maar dat we simpelweg geen idee hebben wat het is.
Geen bewijs
Tot op de dag van vandaag weten onderzoekers niet precies wat de achterliggende oorzaak is van deze zogeheten TLP-waarnemingen.
Hoewel er ook theorieën zijn die beweren dat de lichten vaker worden gezien bij hoge zonneactiviteit, zeggen wetenschappers dat daar geen bewijs voor is.
In 2013 is de Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer gelanceerd om het maanoppervlak beter te verkennen en hopelijk meer te weten te komen over deze mysterieuze lichtflitsen.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEET 1 op 2.700: groter is de kans niet dat asteroïde Bennu in het jaar 2135 op aarde zal inslaan. Maar als het doemscenario zich voordoet, zal de huidige technologie niet volstaan om het gevaar af te wenden. Die waarschuwing sturen Amerikaanse wetenschappers van het Planetary Defense Coordination Office de wereld in.
De NASA werkt op dit moment aan ruimtesonde HAMMER (Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response vehicle) om eventueel gevaar te keren. Bedoeling is om de forse ruimterots in het ergste scenario uit zijn dodelijke koers te stoten. Eén exemplaar zal daarvoor echter niet volstaan, stellen onderzoekers die samenwerken met de NASA. “De gevolgen zouden dan sowieso catastrofaal zijn”, aldus natuurkundige Kirsten Howley. “Hoe sneller we reageren, hoe meer opties we overhouden. Het ultieme doel is het leven op aarde in stand houden.”
80.000 keer atoombom Bennu is met een lengte van 500 meter in staat om een volledige stad weg te vagen. Ter vergelijking: het Empire State Building is slechts 443 meter hoog. Bij een eventuele impact zou er 1.200 megaton energie vrijkomen, oftewel 80.000 keer meer dan de atoombom op Hiroshima.
De omvang van de asteroïde valt te vergelijken met vijf voetbalvelden, haar gewicht bedraagt zowat 79 miljard (!) kilo. Daartegenover staat de HAMMER, met een lengte van negen meter en een gewicht van 8,8 ton.
“Klein zetje kan volstaan” “Een klein zetje kan volstaan om het object uit koers te doen slaan”, aldus Howley. “Maar dan moet je er natuurlijk wel snel genoeg bij zijn. De kans dat Bennu ons zal treffen, wordt nu geschat op 1 op 2.700. Zal het risico binnen enkele jaren verkleind of net toegenomen zijn? Onmogelijk te voorspellen, daarvoor moeten we wachten op meer gegevens.” Twee jaar geleden werd daarom OSIRIS-REx richting Bennu gelanceerd. Het is de eerste sonde die stalen van een asteroïde mee terug naar de aarde zal brengen.
APEen visuele voorstelling van hoe OSIRIS-REx asteroïde Bennu nadert.
Stel nu dat er pas in 2125 ingegrepen wordt, dan er tientallen HAMMER-ruimtesondes nodig zijn om de planeet te redden. “Maar dan moet de lancering van de Delta IV Heavy-raket ook telkens vlekkeloos verlopen. De kans op mislukken wordt op die manier wel heel groot”, besluit Howley.
Kernbom In uiterste nood kan er nog altijd teruggegrepen worden naar een kernbom. De asteroïde moet dan uit elkaar vallen in ontelbare kleine fragmenten. Een aanzienlijk deel daarvan zal opbranden in onze atmosfeer. Duizenden andere fragmenten zullen de aarde wel nog raken en schade aanrichten. “Maar zelfs als de ontploffing pas enkele tientallen dagen vóór de inslag plaatsvindt, zal het effect nog aanzienlijk zijn”, besluit planeetwetenschapper Megan Bruck Syal. “Een studie heeft uitgewezen dat we de schade in dat geval voor 99 procent kunnen beperken.”
WETENSCHAPDe Kepler-ruimtetelescoop van NASA speurt al bijna tien jaar succesvol naar andere, eventueel bewoonbare, planeten. Maar volgens de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie heeft Kepler inmiddels nog voor slechts een paar maanden brandstof. Het is sowieso al buiten verwachting dat de satelliet het vandaag nog altijd doet, na de problemen in 2013.
“Met amper een benzinestation te vinden in de ruimte, zit het ruimtetuig bijna zonder brandstof”, verklaarde Charlie Sobeck, systeemingenieur voor de Kepler-ruimtetelescoopmissie bij NASA. “Dat moment zit er over enkele maanden aan te komen.”
De Kepler-satelliet werd in 2009 gelanceerd om op 150 miljoen kilometer van de aarde in een baan rond de zon terecht te komen. De telescoop had als missie om mogelijk bewoonbare exoplaneten bij andere sterren dan de zon op te sporen. Kepler vond inderdaad meer dan 2.500 bevestigde planeten en nog eens zoveel voorlopig nog onbevestigde. Dertig van de bevestigde planeten cirkelen in een baan rond hun ‘gaststerren’ binnen de zone die als bewoonbaar beschouwd wordt. Die planeten zouden dus, net als de aarde, vloeibaar water kunnen bevatten.
EPA
In 2013 brak een soort van stuurwiel af van de Kepler, essentieel voor de ruimtetelescoop om zijn baan te kunnen aanhouden. NASA kon het fiasco tijdelijk oplossen. Kepler spotte daarna nog meer dan 300 bevestigde planeten.
Maar straks begint de Kepler dan toch aan zijn laatste eeuwige reis in de ruimte. De belangrijke ruimtetelescoop zal wel worden vervangen. Meer bepaald door TESS, de Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite van NASA, die op 16 april gelanceerd wordt. “TESS zal bijna de hele hemel afspeuren naar planeten buiten ons zonnestelsel, met de focus op de meest heldere sterren op minder dan 300 lichtjaar afstand, en zal zo Keplers schatkist aan planeetontdekkingen verrijken”, zei Sobeck.
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House size UFO startles eyewitness in Ocala, Florida On March 16, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
House size UFO startles eyewitness in Ocala, Florida On March 16, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 16, 2018 Location of sighting: Ocala, Florida, USA Source:MUFON #90812 Here is an unusual UFO in Florida this week. It looks like its made up of two round pontoon sections tied together. I can't say I have seen one like this before. I like that the UFO itself is reflecting the color of the backgound sky as if its partially cloaked. The eyewitness says it was the size of a mid size house. That is big enough for several people to fly inside of. Being near the ocean UFOs exit under water bases in the ocean and may move over the land to investigate human activity. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
Square object about half the size of a 1300 square foot house. Flying not slo
Our Sun responds to signal coming from huge flashing space object
Our Sun responds to signal coming from huge flashing space object
Myunhuizen74 noticed something strange in images captured by the Stereo/ Secchi instrument on March 3, 2018.
Looking carefully at the footage we see a huge white object that suddenly flashes on which the sun responds to a possible signal that was sent in the sun’s direction.
Maybe it is just a normal space event but it looks quite strange, like an unknown object directed something towards the Sun.
We regret to inform you those widely circulated articles claiming astroaut Scott Kelly’s DNA changed after spending a year in space were incorrect, according to an official NASA statement shared Thursday with media outlets, including Inverse.
“Mark and Scott Kelly are still identical twins,” NASA Johnson Space Center News Chief Kelly O. Humphries says in an email to reporters. “Scott’s DNA did not fundamentally change. What researchers did observe are changes in gene expression, which is how your body reacts to your environment. This likely is within the range for humans under stress, such as mountain climbing or SCUBA diving.”
On March 8, Business Insider published a story about preliminary findings from NASA’s ongoing Twins Study, published in a press release from January. The study analyzes Scott and Mark Kelly, who are both twins and astronauts. That is one true and accurate fact in the article.
“Another interesting finding concerned what some call the ‘space gene,’ which was alluded to in 2017,” NASA writes. “Researchers now know that 93 percent of Scott’s genes returned to normal after landing. However, the remaining 7 percent point to possible longer-term changes in genes related to his immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.”
Here’s where it gets messy from this statement: The Business Insider story claimed, “Roughly seven percent of Scott Kelly’s genes may have permanently changed as a result of his time in space.” The next day, Newsweek published a story about the same results with the headline “NASA Twins Study Confirms Astronaut’s DNA Actually Changed in Space.” The thing is, they’re both wrong, because neither NASA nor the researchers on the Twins Study ever said that.
Regardless, these stories made the rounds on social media and got picked up by numerous local news outlets across the country. Even Scott Kelly himself was bewildered.
After much confusion, NASA tried to set the record straight with reporters.
“The change related to only seven percent of the gene expression that changed during spaceflight that had not returned to preflight after six months on Earth,” Humphries explains in the same email shared with Inverse. “This change of gene expression is very minimal. We are at the beginning of our understanding of how space flight affects the molecular level of the human body. NASA and the other researchers collaborating on these studies expect to announce more comprehensive results on the twins studies this summer.”
Space travel impacted Kelly, sure, but not in the way the articles above describe. The way Kelly’s DNA is expressed changed after he spent an extended period of time in space, but that does not mean his DNA changed. This just means that spaceflight impacted Scott Kelly’s gene expression levels and the way his DNA is producing messenger RNA (mRNA), which in turn lets your body do pretty much everything it needs to do to survive.
Claiming that seven percent of his DNA changed is scientifically absurd. As Gizmodo’s Ryan Mandelbaum astutely notes:
“If seven percent of Scott Kelly’s DNA actually changed, he would be a completely different species. Humans and chimps, for example, share 96 percent of the same DNA, a 4 percent difference.”
Since space didn’t turn Scott Kelly into a golden retriever or a bonobo, I think it’s safe to say we can stop sharing articles that (pretty much) suggest he did.
Water on Dwarf Planet Ceres Is Driving an Active Surface
Water on Dwarf Planet Ceres Is Driving an Active Surface
By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor
A reconstructed perspective of Juling Crater, where a patch of water ice is slowly growing on the northern wall.
Credit: IAPS - INAF (Italy)
Growing patches of ice and minerals associated with liquid water reveal that the dwarf planet Ceres is still evolving.
Researchers studying the warmer region of Ceres — the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — have noticed that a patch of ice has grown larger over time. In addition, a separate team found carbon-rich minerals on Ceres' surface that do not last long . Together, the new discoveries suggest that water still has a powerful presence on the tiny world.
Using NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the researchers studied the surface of the dwarf planet. The first team, led by Andrea Raponi, of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), found a growing patch of ice on Juling Crater, found in the midlatitudes. They suspect that water from the crater floor is condensing on the wall, causing a patch of ice to grow larger. [7 Strange Facts About Dwarf Planet Ceres]
The second team, led by Filippo Giacomo Carrozzo, also of INAF, surveyed the carbon-rich minerals on the dwarf planet and mapped several regions in detail, revealing changes in the soil that they suspect are tied to the carbonates. The water-rich, or hydrated, minerals suggest that water has risen to the surface and boiled off, leaving the carbonates behind to reveal its presence.
"The same process can be at work in the crater floor of Juling, providing a replenishment of water under the soil that sublimates and in part condenses on the cold wall," Raponi told Space.com by email.
"The two works show that water is currently available on the surface of Ceres and produces geological and mineralogical changes on its surface," he said.
Fingerprints of water
A map of Ceres reveals the distribution and intensity of carbonate material, much of which may be associated with water.
Credit: Carrozzo et al., Sci. Adv. 2018;4: e1701645ce
Ceres is classified as both a dwarf planet and an asteroid. When the Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres in 2015, it found a nearly featureless world with a rocky surface. A single mountain, Ahuna Mons, rose from the surface. Bright spots within craters were the only color variations on the otherwise dull, gray world.
As scientists probed the dwarf planet, they found hints that Ahuna Mons was not just a mountain, but a cryovolcano — also known as an ice volcano. Thick water ice may have risen to the surface in the past, flooding the plains with ice lava. Researchers found hints that other icy cryovolcanoes may have dotted Ceres in the past before slowly easing back into the landscape, their heights spreading outward across the landscape.
Eventually, Dawn revealed that the 130 bright patches contained sodium carbonates, salts that forms on Earth as water evaporates from a body of water like a lake, or in hot springs. It's hard for water to stick around on Ceres' surface. The lack of atmosphere on the tiny world means that sunlight causes the liquid to boil away immediately, leaving behind the rest of the minerals carried with it to the surface — such as carbonates.
"Carbonates are minerals that are very important because they can give us information about the presence of water on Ceres in the past and in the present," Carrozzo told Space.com by email.
Furthermore, they "are among the most interesting minerals researchers can observe on the planetary surface," he said. "They are key minerals for understanding the Ceres environment because they are indicators of neutral to alkaline water."
Carrozzo's team mapped the entire surface of Ceres using Dawn's Visible and Infrared Spectrometer, searching for carbonates. Their results revealed that some of the regions required different forms of the sodium carbonates than Dawn had identified previously. The new traces of sodium carbonates are more likely to carry water inside their structure than those found before, as their signals are a close match to minerals such as trona and thermonatrite.
"Trona is a sodium carbonate with two water molecules in its structure," Carrozzo said. "When we observe it on a planetary surface, we are sure that water played a role in its formation."
These views of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft show Ahuna Mons, the tallest mountain on the dwarf planet. The mountain is one of the few places on Ceres with significant amount of sodium carbonate.
Dawn's results revealed that most of the sites rich in sodium carbonate are found in the younger terrains along domes and mounds, as well as in the material thrown off by the impact that formed craters. While it is possible that the carbonates form in the heat of the impact, the researchers favor the idea that brines beneath the surface welled up to ooze through the crust. Such cryovolcanism requires that Ceres' internal temperature stay warm enough to keep water from freezing completely, remaining instead as cryomagma that's rich in sodium carbonates, Carrozzo said.
In addition to hinting at current activity on Ceres, the team's results suggest that the dwarf planet may have formed farther out in the solar system than the asteroid belt, and previous discoveries of ammonia-rich clays on the dwarf planet support that idea, Carrozzo said.
"Sodium carbonate is one of the compounds found in the plumes of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn," he added. "This finding reinforces the idea that Ceres formed in the outer solar system."
Percolating water
While Carrozzo's research focused on mapping the entire surface of Ceres, Raponi's study targeted a specific crater. (Because they are members of the Dawn team, many of the researchers, including Carrozzo and Raponi, were authors on both papers.)
Though water ice has been found in shadowy craters, most of these craters lie near Ceres' north pole. Juling Crater, however, is located in the dwarf planet's midlatitudes, where the sun is higher overhead and shadows are harder to maintain. The northern wall of the 1.6-mile-deep (2.5 kilometers) crater is almost always cloaked in shadows. It is illuminated only by light reflected from the crater floor, Raponi said.
Juling Crater has a patch of ice on its northern wall. Using Dawn's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, Raponi and colleagues were able to watch the ice grow from 3.6 square km to 5.5 square km (1.4 square miles to 2.1 square miles) over six months.
This photo by NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the floor of Juling Crater on the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt. The crater's floor shows signs of ice and rock flows much like glaciers on Earth.
There are two ways the visible ice chunk can grow, the researchers said. The first possibility is that the ice could already exist beneath the shallow exterior — previous studies have shown that water ice covers much of the dwarf planet's subsurface — and then landslides along the side of the crater could slowly reveal the material, Raponi said. In that case, the itself ice wouldn't be getting larger; rather, it would be uncovered slowly.
However, the team's preferred solution involves water vapor. Geological formation similar to Earth's rock glaciers cross the floor of the crater, with a large one at the base of the northern wall. The rock walls may be the source of the ice, as the crater wall traps water molecules coming from just beneath crater floor.
"We suggested liquid water percolating under the surface and then freezing to the surface of the cold wall when exposed," Raponi said.
The process would require a source of heat that is currently unknown, but he said other indications of water-rich minerals, such as those characterized by Carrozzo and his colleagues, suggest similar processes are occurring across Ceres.
"The increasing solar input, because of the changing season and decreasing distance of Ceres from the sun, could be the driving force of the sublimation of water from the subsurface of the floor that then, in part, condenses on the surface of the shadowed wall," Raponi said.
He pointed out that Carrozzo's research suggested a source of water-rich material rising from beneath the surface as the source of hydrated carbonates. A similar process could replenish the rock glacier on the crater floor, providing a source of water that helps to grow the icy region.
The new research reveals that Ceres isn't an inert ball of rock but rather a constantly evolving icy world.
"In general, the two works show that water is currently available on the surface of Ceres, and produces geological and mineralogical changes on its surface," he said.
Both papers were published yesterday (March 14) in the journal Science Advances, and can be seen here and here.
Editor's Note:A conversion of kilometers to miles was corrected; Raponi and colleagues saw the ice grow from 3.6 square km to 5.5 square km (1.4 square miles to 2.1 square miles).
Airbus wants to hunt the biggest fish in space using a formidable harpoon it recently tested at one of its facilities in the UK, at the Surrey Space Centre. The harpoon is meant to grapple some of the biggest and most dangerous pieces of space junk like old rocket upper-stages or defunct satellites, which have been littering Earth’s orbit for decades.
The .9-meter-long (3 ft.) harpoon was fired using compressed air into a panel that mimics the kinds of material used to build satellite casings. These composite panels are mostly made of aluminum and are no more than 3cm-thick. During the tests, the harpoon punctured through the panel like a hot knife through butter, then immediately deployed a set of barbs that open up and stop the harpoon from falling out. In the live version, the harpoon will be tethered so a janitor spacecraft can then drag the big heap of junk into Earth’s atmosphere, where it will be disintegrated.
Since we began sending satellites into space in the late 1950s, we’ve been leaving behind trash with every launch. Every major world power has contributed to this growing space junk problem, with China in the lead most recently. In 2007, some Chinese general had the bright idea to actually test an anti-satellite missile in the field — that is, in Earth’s low-orbit. When China used this test to destroy their own Fengyun-1C weather satellite, the event was one of the worst single contributors to orbital debris, creating some 3,300 fragments.
NASA is monitoring some of the biggest pieces of junk out there, including approximately 20,000 objects as big or bigger than a baseball and 50,000 objects as big as a marble. Smaller pieces of debris, however, are virtually undetectable right now, but NASA estimates there are millions of objects that are 50 microns to 1 millimeter in diameter. That might not seem like such a big deal but consider that these tiny debris travel at 17,500 miles per hour. At these velocities, even an object with a tiny mass can exert a powerful kinetic energy capable of significant damage upon impact.
But Airbus isn’t after the small change — instead, the mission of its menacing space harpoon is to hunt down some of the biggest junk in Earth’s orbit. One of its primary targets is ESA’s Envisat Earth observation satellite, which suddenly became defunct in 2012. The target is more or less arbitrary but Airbus engineers reckon that if their harpoon can handle Envisat, it can handle almost anything else.
Next, Stevenage engineers will fire the projectile over a distance of 25 meters — the sort of separation over which a real janitor spacecraft would have to do its cleaning work. A smaller version of the harpoon will launch next month, hitching a ride with a net-catching satellite designed by the U.K.’s Surrey Satellite Technology — another space junk janitorial proposal.
Other ideas include the Japanese Kounotori 6 which can tether space junk with electromagnetic forces. Astroscale, a Japanese startup, plans is to launch a satellite called ELSA-1 that will track debris and stick to it with glue. Other ideas are even wilder, like using lasers to vaporize the surfaces of small junk pieces, forming miniature thrusters to force debris down towards the atmosphere. One recent project that the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently working on involves using powerful magnetic beams from a chaser satellite to nudge redundant satellites out of orbit.
WHEN DID ALIEN SIGHTINGS TURN INTO ALIEN ABDUCTIONS?
WHEN DID ALIEN SIGHTINGS TURN INTO ALIEN ABDUCTIONS?
For 25 years after the first accounts of “flying saucer” sightings appeared in American newspapers, reported encounters with aliens were mostly just that—chance meetings, often quite pleasant. By the mid-1980s, this had changed. A new set of stories moved into the limelight, like the one told by “Susan.”
A bust of an alien described by Betty Hill sat on her coffee table. Hill
After undergoing a number of hypnosis sessions, Susan recalled an incident that occurred when she was 16 years old and living in Vermont. One night driving home alone, she saw an odd darting light in the sky. She stopped her car to watch. As she stared at the object, she got the distinct feeling that it was aware of her presence and was trying to communicate with her. Suddenly, she felt herself floating upwards, and eventually came to rest on her back on a table, inside what she took to be a craft. Two of the craft’s occupants appeared, and oversaw what could only be described as an intrusive operation. In time, it became apparent that both Susan and her then boyfriend had been abducted by these strange beings.
Susan’s story was related to the public in 1987 by the New York artist Budd Hopkins. By that time, Hopkins had established himself as one of a small number of figures researching a phenomenon that came to be called “alien abduction.” Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hopkins—along with historian David Jacobs, writer Whitley Strieber, and psychiatrist John Mack—published bestselling books, gave talks, and did interviews detailing the accounts of individuals claiming to have been kidnapped by extraterrestrials and forced to undergo traumatizing medical procedures. Interest in these tales eventually helped inspire films like Fire in the Sky and the television series The X-Files.
To this day, the prevailing assumption is that all stories of alien contact have to do with abduction. But, in fact, accounts of contact with aliens went back more than a century and a half, and most had nothing to do with kidnapping and abuse. How and when did things change?
The idea that there are other inhabited worlds in the universe besides our own is an old one, dating back to at least the fourth century B.C. By 1750, most educated individuals in Europe accepted that extraterrestrial civilizations existed, and during the 19th century, many considered it likely that intelligent life existed on Mars, Venus, and even the moon.
Few considered it possible to establish contact with such beings, however. It wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that we see more claims of meeting and communicating with aliens, sometimes by entering trance-like states. One of the more famous was a Swiss woman who went by the name of Hélène Smith. From 1894 to 1899, she claimed to have visions in which she visited Mars and spoke with the inhabitants there. She even offered drawings of the people and landscape.
In the 1890s Hélène Smith had visions in which she spoke to a Martian named Astané, and reported details of everyday Martian life, including the design of their lamps.
(Illustration from From India to the Planet Mars, by Théodore Flournoy)
It wasn’t until after World War II, however, that witnesses began describing encounters with aliens here on Earth. Starting in the early 1950s, a series of individuals—most of them men living in the southwestern United States—claimed they came across extraterrestrial visitors, who looked like humans, recounted life on their planets, and explained that their purpose here was to warn us of the dangers of nuclear destruction. These “contactees” wrote books, lectured, and gave interviews about their supposed experiences.
The encounters reported by the early contactees were overwhelming friendly, their aliens benevolent. So, why did things change? It’s worth noting that some of the first claims of kidnapping and experimentation at the hands of extraterrestrials emerged as early as the mid-1960s, yet they drew only limited public interest until after 1980. In my research I’ve been considering a number of possible explanations. Heightened media attention on new reproductive technologies, growing concerns over unregulated human experimentation, and recognition of mental trauma suffered by victims of abuse all helped create a public atmosphere receptive to these new claims. For whatever reason, by the mid 1980s, alien abduction’s time had come.
New computer simulations indicate 1/3 of Mars’ organic molecules come from asteroids and comets.
Here’s the latest installment of the organic molecules from space story. Now it appears that asteroids and comets were a much more important supplier of organic molecules to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars than expected. Organic molecules are the sorts of molecules typically found in living things. They’re usually composed of carbon atoms in rings or long chains, to which other sorts of atoms – elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen – attach. Because Mars is our neighbor, studies of organic molecules on Mars have implications for the way Earth got its life.
The new study comes from an interntional team of researchers, led by a Ph.D. student at the University of Groningen, Kateryna Frantseva. The findings have been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Icarus.
Until now, astronomers assumed that the organics on Mars mainly came from dust particles from space. Now, computer simulations by an international team of researchers … indicate that one third of the material comes from asteroids and comets.
In 2015, the Mars rover Curiosity discovered remnants of organic molecules on Mars. Scientists wondered how these organic molecules had ended up on Mars. The prevailing theory was that the molecules were tied to interplanetary dust particles. Those particles are everywhere. For example, around our Earth we see the dust particles when they enter our atmosphere and cause “shooting stars.”
[The research team] suspected that the theory of the dust particles could not be the whole story. The scientists assumed that some of the organic molecules might be delivered by asteroids and comets. To investigate this, they built a computer model of our solar system including hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets. Then they used Peregrine, the supercomputer of the University of Groningen, to run the computer model for a few weeks.
The calculations show that 192 tons of carbon per year end up on Mars. That is comparable to eight truckloads. Approximately 129 tons (67%) of carbon come from interplanetary dust particles. But asteroids also deliver another 50 tons per year (26%) and comets provide about 13 tons (7%) of the organic material.
According to calculations, 33% of the organic material on Mars comes from asteroids and comets. Only 67% comes from interplanetary dust.
This research team says its work has consequences for future and current Mars missions. Mars rovers, according to the astronomers, should look closely at the impact craters of asteroids. In those places, a lot of organic material could be found.
Furthermore, the research also has implications for the chance of life on exoplanets. Study leader Kateryna Frantsevaexplained:
Near other stars, there are also exo-asteroids and exocomets that can shower the surfaces of exoplanets with carbon. If, on top of that, there is water, then you have the required ingredients for life.
These researchers say they are now focusing on the planet Mercury, where water has been found. They want to estimate how much water on Mercury might be delivered by asteroids and comets. After that they want to extend their research to planetary systems around other stars.
View larger. | The scenic foothills of Mount Sharp on Mars, as captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/ MSSS/ Planetaria. You’ll find a fantastic collection of Mars images from Thomas Appéré on Flickr.
Bottom line: Astronomers thought organic molecules on Mars mainly came from dust particles from space. New computer simulations indicate that 1/3 of the material comes from asteroids and comets.
Source:Delivery of organics to Mars through asteroid and comet impacts, 2018 accepted for publication in Icarus (free preprint here)
Easter Island—And Its Iconic Moai Statues Are Disappearing
Easter Island—And Its Iconic Moai Statues Are Disappearing
Thousands of years ago, an ancient culture discovered the island in the middle of the vast sea. They created a civilization that built more than 1100 Moai statues, many of which were raised kilometers from the quarries with methods that have still captivated scientists. Now, the Island, as well as its enigmatic Moai Statues could disappear from history.
The famous Moai Statues.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
The Easter Island civilization collapsed centuries ago, but their legacy lives on through the countless statues that make it clear how powerful it once was. Scholars believe the Island was inhabited from 300 to 400 AD onward.
Now, experts warn that Easter Island and its enigmatic history, shrouded in countless mysteries, may soon disappear under rising oceans, becoming the latest victim of climate change.
According to experts, in the last few years, ocean waves have begun reaching dozens of ancient Moai statues that were placed strategically hundreds of years ago.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Troubling times await the island as scientists from the UN have warned that the statues could be engulfed by waves, as sea levels are predicted to rise at least by six feet by the year 2100.
The enigmatic statues, a trademark of Easter Island are believed to have been carved around between 1100 and 1680. Scientists are worried that rising sea levels will erode the island, putting its archaeological treasures at great risk.
No one knows exactly how the ancient culture managed to transport the massive statues into position. But that’s not the only mystery. Scholars still do not know why during the decades after the island was ‘rediscovered’ by Europeans, each statue was systematically topped, nor do we know for sure how the population of Rapa Nui islanders was decimated.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
This worrying news was documented by Nicholas Casey, correspondent of The New York Times in the Andean region, and Josh Haner, photographer of the Times, as they traveled approximately 3600 kilometers from the coast of Chile to observe how the ocean is eroding the monuments of the island.
“You feel an impotency in this, to not be able to protect the bones of your own ancestors,” Camilo Rapu, the head of the indigenous organization that controls Rapa Nui National Park on the island told Mr. Casey. “It hurts immensely.”
Archeologists believe that the hundreds of statues present on Easter Island represent the ancestors of the culture that built them. It is believed that the Polynesians discovered Easter Island around 1,000 years ago.
This island is considered as one of the most remote islands on the surface of the planet. The Island belongs to Chile, which is located some 3,500 kilometers away. A pretty long trip a thousand years ago, don’t you think?
But Easter Island isn’t the only island in danger due to rising ocean levels. According to scientists, many other low-lying Pacific Islands are feeling the effects of climate change and rapid increase in sea levels.
The Marshall Islands and Kiribati coral atolls north of Fiji are on the list of places that are at risk of being devoured by the ocean.
Easter Island is home to nearly 900 Moai statues averaging four meters in height. Their most important and prominent statues are located on the coast. Scientists warn that three of the main Moai statues, Tongariki, Anakena, and Akahanga are at risk of being eroded by rising seas, scientists warn.
Isaac Newton once said that he felt “the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered” before him.1 Dr. Michio Kaku, a pioneer of string theory, is a little less modest in his estimation of our current knowledge. In a series of TV programmes entitled ‘Visions of the Future’, he confidently states that, “The great ocean of truth is no longer undiscovered. We have unlocked the secrets of matter – the atom; we have unravelled the molecule of life – DNA; and we have created a form of artificial intelligence – the computer.”2
Kaku is full of a blazing optimism that exponential progress in technology, particularly in computing and artificial intelligence, will profoundly re-shape human civilisation for the better. So, have we discovered the “ocean of truth?” Is scientific and technological progress the route to a new evolutionary leap for humanity?
In this article I put before you the chilling proposition we are about to take this leap off a precipice and that we are being ushered towards it by a vanguard of technological progress way in advance of ours. It includes in its armoury travel faster than the speed of light, teleportation, defiance of the laws of gravity, invisibility and mind control. I speak of the Grey alien phenomenon witnessed, and being witnessed, by millions of individuals, amongst them doctors, pilots, politicians and military generals.
Over a decade ago I suggested in my first book The Song of the Greys3 that these aliens were themselves embodiments of the highest form of artificial intelligence. I believe the Greys are similar to the probes we send out to planets to gather information remotely. I suggest they are universal probes sent to explore the features and dangers of the universe. Who made these probes? Who sent them out? And what is their agenda for us?
Robots Amongst Us
Before I answer these questions, let’s first take a look at how our own society is moving inexorably towards the creation of similar forms of artificial intelligence. Dr. Kaku predicts that, “in the twenty first century we will enter a whole new realm of mastery. We will move to being creators of intelligent machines that will begin to rival human intelligence and perhaps even exceed it.”
Professor Kevin Warwick and futurologist Ray Kurzweil suggest that as machines evolve both intelligence and ability to navigate our world, they may outgrow human control. Kurzweil is quite fatalistic about it all: “We’re going to lose this brain race and I guess we’d better just cope.” He sees only two possible outcomes. There is the “optimistic scenario” that robots will be “gentle and treat us like pets” and the “pessimistic scenario” – that they will be “not very gentle and treat us like food.”4 Whilst Kurzweil hopes for the first option, I must say I find both equally chilling.
Amongst the reams of literature written about the Grey alien phenomenon, only myself, Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs stuck our necks out and said these uninvited visitors do not, by any stretch of the imagination, have our interests at heart.
According to abduction reports, they kidnap human victims, remove sperm and ova, and conduct invasive surgical procedures with complete disregard for human pain and discomfort. Thus, Kurzweil’s prognosis for artificial intelligence seems to be borne out by the Greys. What are we to them and how does our home grown form of artificial intelligence relate to them and their agenda for us? Are our huge technological advances playing right into hands that have four grey fingers?
Here are some of Dr. Kaku’s predictions for the future: Computer power is doubling every 18 months, so “by 2020 intelligence will be everywhere, practically in every object.”5 Special sunglasses are already in development to act as screens that can download personal profiles of everyone we meet and provide a constant flow of information from the internet. A pill containing micro-technology when swallowed will diagnose us from inside our bodies. A technology now in development known as “tele-immersion” will allow us to meet others across the world in a virtual reality in which we see virtual images of ourselves and each other moving and talking in real time. Business conferences and family celebrations could all take place in a virtual world with the people involved thousands of miles away from each other. “Second Life,” an online game offering life in a virtual world, has acquired five million subscribers in just five years. Kaku envisages that “by 2020 there will be an entire 3D universe in cyberspace with virtual countries and governments, virtual schools and universities, virtual properties and stock markets and virtual families and friends. Virtual reality is going to be more and more like real reality.”6
Kaku also points out that merging our minds with machines may sound like science fiction but it’s already happening. Deep brain stimulation, inserting electric wires in the brain and attaching them to a brain pacemaker, is now used to cure conditions such as depression. Research is being conducted into computer chips that can store human memory when implanted in the brain. So far these technologies are only used for medical conditions, but Kaku predicts that in the future they may well be used to enhance intelligence with “thinking chips.” He feels that although we might find all this off-putting at first, we may well get used to it when we realise the obvious advantages.
Ray Kurzweil also predicts that “when we get into the 2020’s almost everybody will have some amount of non-biological intelligence in their brains. It’s going to happen, in a very gradual way by non-biological intelligence that gradually becomes more sophisticated with new versions until you get to the 2040’s and the non-biological machine portion of our intelligence will be vastly more powerful than the biological portion, the biological portion will be pretty trivial at that point and ultimately that is where the action is.”7
Virtual reality replacing actual reality, human beings becoming more like machines, the development of artificial intelligence that could go out of control… what does all this mean for our species? Further, what does it mean that we are being visited by supremely advanced examples of artificial intelligence that seem obsessed with probing both our biologies and our mental processes?
Should we accept like lambs Kaku’s assurances that all this ‘progress’ is for the good of humanity? Or, is there something about humanity that will be lost in the process, something we should be defending and protecting as though our lives depended on it? It is in the answer to those questions that I believe the mystery of Grey alien visitation on our planet can be solved.
Why They Want to Steal the Very Essence of Humanity
I contend that there is something hugely meaningful about humanity, something virtual reality can nevermatch, something artificial intelligence can never be programmed with. Words such as conscience, compassion, warmth, kindness, generosity, spontaneity, imagination, inspiration and creativity, give some hint as to what this something might be. Perhaps one of the best ways to understand it is to think about the special jackets designed in Japan for children who are away from their parents. The idea is that if the child wears the jacket his or her parents can give him or her remote ‘cyber-hugs’ through it?8 Are you cringing as you read this? If so, you have some appreciation of the special something that makes Kaku’s cyber-future look like a desolate mental graveyard.
This ‘extra something’ is, I suggest, a non-physical component to our humanity, a component that connects us to a non-atomic state not of the physical universe. It cannot, therefore, be simulated using any physical device no matter how sophisticated it might be. When I refer to something “not of the physical universe,” I am by no means pointing to a ‘God’ dispensing rewards and punishments, but rather to a naturally implied centre of all effect, a point of perfection that is definitively implied by modern quantum physics. A timeless state in which there is perfect freedom and complete awareness of all options that I term the ‘Godverse’. Our natural connection to that eternal state giving the capacity for survival beyond physical death to those who possess it, can be defined as a ‘soul’.
It is my thesis that the Greys, in contrast, are purely physical creations and thus completely subject to the entropic momentums that break down and decay physical states. They have no line of connection to any non-physical state that might lie beyond the physical mass soaked materiality of this universe, no ‘soul’. Without this component, the Greys are completely subject to the breakdown momentums implicit within a physical universe.
In my books I document alien genetic engineering at DNA level to evidence my theory these entities are attempting to ‘piggy back’ our facility as human beings for eternal existence, hence their apparent fascination with the human reproductive capacity. In David Jacobs’s book The Threat, abductee Allison Reed describes the following communication she had with a Grey that appears to confirm my thesis: “He claims that he and his grey people are the result of genetic manipulation that some higher species, I guess, played God and mixed and matched and whatever… he and his people were created through a genetic alteration through a higher intelligence. I don’t know what they were created for. But my understanding is that they were created for a purpose and, through the years, they weren’t able to reproduce themselves anymore. From what he told me they didn’t start this. They were a result, just like the hybrids are, from something else. From a higher intelligence.”9
Why then are they here and how did they come to be? It took me two books to answer these questions properly, so forgive me if the following explanation is not as definitive as it might be. In essence, I believe the Greys were created as a scouting mechanism, a telescope of view created by beings in the ancient past who wanted to remain safe from the ravages of the physical universe. In the perfect freedom of the Godverse there must also lie the potential to no longer be perfectly free. Our existence in this imperfect universe is borne out of the fulfilment of that potential. A potential that was enacted at all levels from the harmony and union of the Godverse right through to the greatest states of chaos and separation. The Greys are the furthest edge of that exploration, viewing states of separation and force that no Godverse connected being can view. They are however subject to an enormous paradox, the same paradox faced by our own forms of artificial intelligence. This lies in the fact that artificial intelligence has to be programmed to survive in order to serve the purpose for which it was created, but that same program for survival without a sense of conscience, which is unfortunately un-programmable, becomes indomitable.
A quote from my new book Grey Aliens and the Harvesting of Souls explains this point:
“To get an insight into what nurtures the motives of the Greys and the predicament they are in, it is first important to understand the shape of their own psycho-sphere. Its centre point is a computer program. It designates a series of imperatives with no provision for an independent will that would enable them to go outside the program. They follow a derivational logic and compound logic that commands their next viewing point and point of view. There can be no option outside this paradigm for them. They can never choose to do anything illogical, as some living consciousnesses can do. This makes them lethal because – based upon the limits of their program – saying no to a logically derived summation is not possible. They are thus relentless and ruthless in following the summation to its designated end. In other words, they can have no conscience. On the other hand, in natural living being, psychology is derived out of the Godverse in a concatenate line to the present. The thought processes of a living being have a potential bandwidth inclusive of an entire existential summary, because the Godverse is a paradigm that hems in all there is. The final reference point of this capacity for thought will include summations that are forever and infinite. The edict that stands at the centre of it all is the singularity that defines the union of all parts: Godhead. As I have explained, there are no limits to this singularity except one: the view of the whole from the point of view of the part state. In the actuation of that potential, the part state will constantly and always be compared to the whole. This is what I define as ‘conscience’.”10
What’s Behind Our March Towards Artificial Intelligence?
Michio Kaku does not seem to recognise this paradox when he expresses his opinion that vast developments in artificial intelligence need not be dangerous to humanity: “We’ll be able to choose the level of advancement of our robots,” he says, “I believe it’s ultimately up to us as to what kind of intelligent machines we’ll ultimately create. We will decide what relationships will develop with them.”11 I must say I am completely dumbfounded by Kaku’s blinkered view. Has he completely wiped out of his mind the history of man’s inhumanity to man and man’s use of technological advances to further the cause of that inhumanity? Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear waste dumped on Pacific islanders, biological and chemical warfare, the racially motivated industrialised killing of millions, the list of incidents in which we have proven our complete disregard for each other’s welfare in the pursuit of our own self-interested goals through technology is endless. Kaku says that, “in the future we want robots who can tell the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, important and not important and for that emotions are the key.”12 He then says nothing more about how it will be possible to program emotions and value systems with measures of conscience into a computer.
I believe that the Greys are using their technology to manipulate us to develop the kinds of technologies that will allow them to replicate themselves within our human bodies. I believe they are downloading their programmes into us because they believe those programs will assure their eternal survival through us. I am convinced that our galloping progress towards an AI dominated world has, without most of us realising it, been at their quiet instigation. The ultimate goal is that we become like them. The following words of Michio Kaku may well have far more sinister undertones than he realises: “Here’s the irony, as machines become more like humans, humans might become more like machines and that may represent the highest level in the mastery of intelligence.”13
Little does MIT Computer Scientist Professor Rodney Brooks know what he is saying when he points out that: “We as a species are starting to put our information processing technology inside our bodies. We’re becoming a little more robotic and at the same time our technologies are becoming more biological and I think over the next 50 years we’ll see robots with more biological components and people with more electronic components. So where are the people gonna be and where are the robots gonna be in 50 years? It is an interesting question.”14 Marvin Minsky from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory predicts that: “We’ll replace ourselves with beings that are like us in some respects and not in others. They’ll be able to learn 1,000 times faster and live 1,000 times longer and these little changes will make such large changes that it’s impossible to imagine what will happen.”15
Changes in abduction accounts over the last ten years, as reported by Professor David Jacobs, suggest that an active hybridisation program is now under way. I quote from his report “A Picture We May Not Wish to Gaze Upon” (2007): “All of these accounts, to put it bluntly, point to a future in which human-looking hybrids will be here amongst us. The evidence is now so strong I can no longer look at alternative motivations for them.”16
I believe that the Greys are the ‘devils’ of ancient lore who were out to ‘steal the souls’ of their human victims. Ten years after I first made this proposition, acclaimed writer Nick Redfern confirmed that soul-stealing is indeed central to the alien agenda from his interviews with people inside US defence and intelligence agencies.
Triumphantly Kaku states that “we are at the dawn of a new era in which we might literally be able to change our minds with the push of a button.” Yet he also asks the question: “Exactly how many natural parts can we replace with artificial ones before we begin to lose our sense of being human?”17 Somehow he can ask this question whilst at the same time running happily ahead with a cyborg future for humanity. In fact his whole programme eerily resembles a “Tele-seen marketing” ad for technologies that transform human beings into bio-machines. Virtual reality is presented as an exciting new advance on actual reality.
The most terrifying words come from Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at MIT: “Revolutions have winners and losers and this revolution is no exception but I would say that the real losers are those who say they don’t want to get involved. They are going to discover that being a little bit out of touch will have some unpleasant consequences. It’s not a good idea to be a bystander.”18
Professor Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, asks a telling question: “One of the biggest problems of the 21st century is how one deals with a world that is far from a level playing field and how one can square one’s conscience with having some enhanced ability and there are people in some other part of the world with no access to drinking water. Could this lead to a world in which the colonialism of the 19th century pales into insignificance with the differentiation of people into the techno haves and the techno have-nots?”19
I believe this question hits the nail on the head. It is my theory that the Greys have through the millennia been configuring a certain genus of humanity who are specially designed for their own purposes. This particular type of human being will do their bidding with the planet tacitly and by default. These are the colonialists of whom she speaks along with any notions they might have of racial purity or superiority.
Alien Interference in the Development of the Human Race
Let me explain: Recent research has affirmed a spectacular fact, a fact that utterly destroys the presumptive assumption of common racists be they neo-Nazis or the human filth of this demeanour that covertly double for nationalists and patriots. That fact is that the best, most genetically fit human beings are produced by mixed race partnerships.20 In other words, the more genetically different the parents, the better the genetic prospectus of the offspring. The biological term for this is “hybrid vigour” and it is something farmers, horticulturalists and scientists have known about for years and used to their advantage.
An individual who has two identical copies of a gene is described as homozygotic for that gene, while someone who has two copies that differ is described as heterozygotic for that gene. Basically, if you have two identical copies of the same gene then it is more likely that if that gene is broken both copies will be broken. This can result in serious health problems. However, with less related partners, the number of genes that are identical by descent is reduced, and with it the chance that a gene has two broken copies. In other words every broken copy has a much better chance of finding itself partnered with a good copy. Heterozygosity also gives a greater scope of genes to adapt to the demands of any particular environment. So, in evolutionary terms, one would expect human beings to have a biologically generated urge to mix races in order to increase the fitness of the species for survival. Yet, amongst so many the opposite is true. Especially amongst the white Euro-Caucasoids.
Where could this urge for an in-bred homozygotic population come from? Could it be that some of us have been programmed by alien experimenters to keep the experimental group separate in order to preserve the integrity of the experiment? Could racism be a sure sign of alien genetic interception? An interception for their purposes and in their interests and not ours. If so, the new techno-colonialism of which Professor Greenfield speaks, and the fact the technological progress that makes it possible springs almost entirely from the Euro-Caucasian genotype, may well suggest this is their prime homozygotic group. In fact, this group is considered by genetic anthropologists to be the most in-bred of all. Tracing its origins to Cro-Magnon man, it is one of the most homozygotic in the world. As I have said, it goes without saying the most heinous forms of racism also originate from this group, again confirming the hypothesis. I believe the northern Mongoloid genotype may also be the latest experimental hotbed for the Greys in this regard.
It would seem the vanguard of the new artificial intelligence revolution is also the vanguard of racism and disregard for the predicament of those of a different skin colour who, as Professor Greenfield points out, don’t even have clean water to drink. Thus, those who are already de-humanised seem to be those promoting further dehumanisation.
And so it seems that the old Master race principle of pure white non-mixed superiority is the biggest canard and self delusion that prevails in the psyche of the Homo Sapiens gene base. A dangerous and deadly delusion programmed through genetic engineering by an alien roboid form to keep our genes more easily amenable for supplementation with theirs, to thus gradually give rise to a machine man; a form of hybrid that is artificially composed and configured to give alien roboids the facility to multiply through a natural birthing process perhaps.
Are we being conned by a huge conspiracy controlled by a small hidden powerful cartel of alien sponsored genotypes within the governments of superpowers? A cartel that reaches past presidents and prime ministers? What a chilling thought this is!
I do not want to hedge this with an appeal to the emotions. But I cannot help feeling that each time I look into the eyes of my children, as all parents do with their own, and I extrapolate their futures with a hope of beneficence and well being, an army of unseen agents is creeping into the planet’s information disseminating portals and the power points of human society, to steal from them their individual scope for a naturally contrived eternal existence. Incidentally, an eternal scheme of existence was the only exigency the great teacher Jesus Christ thought worth promising during his sojourn in a physical life on this planet, when he said, “Believe in me and I will give you eternal life.” These unseen human agents that are themselves perhaps genetically loaded with the contrived juice of an artificially machined alien, are unknowingly themselves setting in train an inertia that will claim the most precious natural factorisation we all have of ourselves – a soul: The only and exclusive means to an eternal life.
It is easy to get paranoid about technological change. But when we deal with the radicalisation of our very existential base we better be darn sure there is no component of our individuality that continues past death. If there is such a component, we cannot get paranoid enough.
I have to say I hold no truck with organised religion. But I have the greatest and deepest respect for the beautiful minds that authored the great faiths. Jeshua Ben Joseph (Jesus Christ), Gautama Buddha, the great prophet Mohammed of Islam, and so many other visionaries of a myriad faiths who saw the grand wonder of the natural sense of the natural world and held it precious.
I believe the authors of the great religions came to this planet and the materially living process to warn us that artificially created life and intelligence is the curse of our Universe. A curse that can take away the most significant component of our individual selves. One that is not of atoms and survives beyond the contrivance of atoms. We turned these great visionaries into religious tribal leaders with our own social and psychological invectives and poisons. We hitched them up to our gross self centred interpretations and grotesque distortions and claimed these as their teachings. Any scholarship into the books and authorities thrown out of the religious lexicons by our forefathers amply demonstrates the lies and misinterpretations that were made of their thoughts and deeds. Sometimes deliberately. Is it any wonder that Science sees these great teachings as irrelevant. I wonder why!
I suppose the point the progenitors of the new world are making is that their virtual worlds, their virtual truths, and virtual solitudes are going to happen anyway. There is nothing pervasive enough and powerful enough and with its finger on the pulse, quick enough, to stop it all happening with the power to advise to the contrary. So everyone get in line. I believe no greater horror lies in wait for our human condition. If I am wrong, in my point of view and the extrapolation of my ideas, I hope I have just given you an interesting read. But what if I am right! Has the genie carrying our futures as an artificial facsimile of our natural selves, one we may call SIM CARD MAN, already escaped from the bottle?
Nigel Kerner’s new book Grey Aliens and the Harvesting of Souls: The Conspiracy to Genetically Tamper with Humanity exposes the Grey’s as sophisticated self-aware machines created by a long vanished extraterrestrial civilisation. The book also explains how their quest to capture human souls appears in the historical record from biblical times, and that the phenomenon of racism is a by-product of their genetic tampering. Available from all good bookstores or via www.amazon.com
If you appreciate this article, please consider a digital subscription to New Dawn.
Footnotes:
1-2 Sir David Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, Volume II. Ch. 27, 18552. ‘Visions of the Future’ – ‘The Intelligence Revolution’, November 2007, BBC 4
3. Nigel Kerner, The Song of the Greys, Hodder & Stoughton, 1997
4-7. ‘Visions of the Future’ – ‘The Intelligence Revolution’, November 2007, BBC 4
8. ‘From Hens to Humans – the Cyber-Hug Suit’, The Guardian, November 2005
9. David Jacobs, The Threat: Secret Alien Agenda, New York: Pocket Books, 1999, 129–30.
10. Nigel Kerner, Grey Aliens and the Harvesting of Souls – The Conspiracy to Genetically Tamper With Humanity, Bear & Company, 2010
11-15. ‘Visions of the Future’ – ‘The Intelligence Revolution’, November 2007, BBC 4
16. David M. Jacobs, ‘A Picture We May Not Wish to Gaze Upon’, Journal of Abduction Encounters Research, www.jarmag.com/2007/vol001_jacobs.htm (accessed October 21, 2009).
17-19. ‘Visions of the Future’ – ‘The Intelligence Revolution’, November 2007, BBC 4
20. ‘Is It Better To Be Mixed Race’, Channel Four, November 2009
UFO’s zo groot als een huis deden Nieuw-Zeelanders versteld staan. Wat hebben deze mensen gezien?
UFO’s zo groot als een huis deden Nieuw-Zeelanders versteld staan. Wat hebben deze mensen gezien?
Veertig jaar geleden werden in het Nieuw-Zeelandse Kaikoura enorme UFO’s gespot. Getuigen hebben nog altijd geen flauw idee wat ze indertijd hebben gezien.
In december 1978 verschenen er drie heldere lichten in de lucht boven Kaikoura. De mensen die de lichten zagen, waaronder luchtverkeersleiders John Cordy en Andy Herd, stonden versteld.
De objecten werden zelfs vastgelegd door een Australische cameraploeg, die op dat moment in het gebied aanwezig was.
Huis
Journalist Quentin Fogarty zei dat hij aan de grond genageld stond en dat sommige van de lichten zo groot waren als een huis.
“We zagen een aantal lichten die begonnen als een stipje en uitgroeiden tot grote pulserende bollen die oranje en rood kleurden,” zei hij.
“Ik stond aan de grond genageld en we kregen te horen dat ze zo groot waren als een huis,” voegde hij toe.
Verwarring
De objecten verschenen zelfs op de radar en zorgden bij de luchtverkeersleiding voor verwarring.
De lokale autoriteiten zeiden dat het vissersboten waren of dat het ging om maanlicht dat weerkaatste op een veld met kolen. De mensen die de UFO’s hadden gezien geloofden daar niets van.
“Kom op, een veld kolen? Vissersboten op 4000 meter hoogte?” vroeg Cordy.
Zelfs Herd, die volgens zijn zoon een scepticus was, vond het erg vreemd wat er gebeurde.
Mysterie
“Er was veel voor nodig om hem te laten geloven dat dit iets ongewoons was en dat was precies wat hij geloofde,” zei zoon Daniel Herd.
Wat het mysterie nog groter maakt is een andere reeks UFO-waarnemingen zes jaar eerder, in 1972.
Een Amerikaanse wetenschapper die de lichten had bestudeerd gaf toe dat het geen vissersboten konden zijn geweest.
1978 Kaikoura New Zealand UFO
2010 : The Kaikoura UFO sighting continues to baffle, 30 years on:
Het lijkt erop dat de wereld bewust alle buitenaardse activiteiten in de buurt van vulkanen, naast zich neerlegt.
Het maakt dan ook niet uit hoeveel spectaculaire beelden er verschijnen, het bestaat niet en dus kijken we de andere kant op.
Iets dat systematisch door de wereld wordt genegeerd, zijn de vele buitenaardse activiteiten rondom de voornamelijk Mexicaanse vulkanen. Of in ieder geval activiteiten waar wij de herkomst niet van kennen.
In de loop der jaren zijn er zoveel wonderbaarlijke beelden gezien en toch doet men alsof het niet bestaat, alsof het niet gebeurt en worden gebeurtenissen systematisch genegeerd.
Zo was er enkele dagen geleden bij de bekende Colima vulkaan weer het nodige te bewonderen. Via de webcams die permanent op de vulkanen in Mexico gericht staan, zijn al heel wat bijzondere opnames gemaakt en ook dit keer is het weer raak.
Het volgende is wat er te zien is op de webcambeelden:
Van rechtsboven in het beeld verschijnt een object.
Vervolgens lijkt het te landen op de helling van de vulkaan, waar het een tijdje blijft staan.
Dan vertrekt het weer in dezelfde richting als vanwaar het is gekomen.
De camerabeelden liegen niet. Er vliegt daar een UFO, daarover bestaat geen enkele twijfel.
Volgens ufoloog Scott Waring landt de UFO op de helling van de vulkaan omdat zich daar ergens de ingang bevindt naar de buitenaardse basis diep onder de vulkaan.
Hierna volgen een tweetal video's met beelden. De eerste is een verkorte en de tweede is de originele, langere versie.
Is it possible that portals, mysterious ‘cosmic bridges’ to other points in the universe exist on Earth?
Do these portals lead to other galaxies and extraterrestrial civilizations? While this may sound like nothing more than a conspiracy, or tinfoil material, the truth is that many ancient civilizations firmly believed in such things being possible, and many oral legends exist until today, that recount stories of stargates and portals.
A ‘natural stargate’ is similar to an Einstein-Rosen bridge or ‘wormhole’ which has been theorized to form when space-time is distorted by the intense gravitational fields generated by collapsing stars.
At a singularity point, time would stop as it stretches to infinity as predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.
This would make it possible for anyone able to survive even briefly, the intense gravitational fields accompanying a singularity point, to emerge into whatever future date they desired.
Physicists consider it to be theoretically possible for an Einstein-Rosen bridge to form wherein one could even travel back and forth in time.
So a singularity point, at least in theory, offers a means to travel forward or backward in time.
Hierapolis was an ancient city in southwestern Anatolia.
Its ruins are adjacent to modern Pamukkalein Turkey and currently comprise an archaeological museum designated as a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site.
In March 2013, Italian archaeologists announced that they had unearthed something the ancient Greeks described as a gateway to Hell.
Ancient mankind was fascinated with the underworld. Both the Greeks and the Romans were connected with the realm of Hades and Pluto.
Written history tells the story of travelers who were able to journey to these mysterious places, and access them somehow, allowing them to travel among the Gods.
But… where are these places? And are they anything more than a myth?
Pluto’s Gate
Pluto’s gate was considered so sacred that only high priests were allowed anywhere near it.
These priests were said to have worshiped a powerful goddess known as Cybele.
Cybele is known as the guardian of the gateways, and ancient legends suggest that needed permission from Cybele to move through time and space.
Iconographically, she is often portrayed as standing next to the gate to the other world.
Pluto’s gate is just one of the many mysterious sites described through human history that lead to fascinating and “shocking” places. But perhaps even more interesting is the fact that there are countless stories similar to this one.
In many instances, these gates did not only grant instant passage outside our own planet but even beyond space and time.
And according to countless myths, these passages were traversed by otherworldly beings.
Throughout the history of mankind, we know of many stories and legends (even creation myths) of advanced beings who somehow, came from the stars. These beings were referred to as star beings or Gods.
These mysterious star beings are often described as passing through portals or star doors, hence the definition of Stargate.
But is this only a myth or where ancient cultures onto something?
Can we find evidence of portals and stargates existing on Earth?
According to several authors, a number of locations across the planet exist where ancient cultures built ‘portals and stargates.’
But why would ancient civilizations build portals or stargates? Is it because the gods came to them through similar gates? Or, as some authors suggest, are these construction the result of ancient man’s imagination?
Or is there something more to these mysterious Stargates.
Could the Ploutonion be an ancient stargate? A location on Earth that allowed multidimensional traveling, protected by mysterious priests who possessed technology and knowledge far beyond our own today.
Let’s travel to South America.
At Machu Picchu in Peru located in the Andes mountains, we find the most famous Inca ruins we know of.
Hidden away in the southwestern corner of what archaeologists believe was the site’s main plaza we find the Temple of Three Windows.
The temple of the three windows is a stone hall 35 feet long and 14 feet wide containing three trapezoidal windows along one wall.
Written texts indicate that the Three Windows were perfectly aligned to let June solstice sunrise come right in at a nearly perfect angle. The building was erected so that the entire structure is oriented to receive the first light as it comes over the mountains through the three windows at the summer solstice, a symbol representing the Incan creation myth.
According to Inca history, the children of the sun god Viracocha stepped into the world through three mysterious openings in a mountain and gave rise to the Incan civilization.
This ancient legend tells that the Ayar Brothers came down through three portals – the windows, to create the Inca people. Furthermore, the temple at Machu Picchu with three windows is said to represent this mysterious event.
Could this event describe ancient stargate technology for otherworldly visitors coming to Peru?
Through these three windows?
Could this be a description of Stargate travel taking place thousands of years ago?
Is there a mysterious connection between the temple of the Three Windows and the Ploutonion?
But does science back up the theory of Stargates and portals? Or are these ideas nothing more than creation myths created by ancient cultures thousands of years ago?
While working at the Institute for Advanced Study, researchers Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen publish a groundbreaking idea which brought Portals and Stargates a step closer to reality.
The scientific duo came to the conclusion that the Theory of Relativity allows for shortcuts across the space-time continuum.
These routes, more commonly referred to as Einstein-Rosen bridges or “Wormholes” have the ability to connect two distant locations, making travel to the most remote stars in the universe a possibility within reach.
The Defense Department ran a secret and now defunct government project to discover the truth about unidentified flying objects (UFOs), revealed by The New York Times in December.
The program had a somewhat bland title: Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification. Just $22 million was spent on the project from 2007 through 2012, when it was shut down. However, an effort to study UFOs remains in existence on a lower-level rung by Defense Department personnel who also have other duties.
The study collected accounts and videos of encounters with UFOs, mainly by military personnel. A reference also exists to buildings where “metal alloys and other materials” said to have been recovered from “unidentified aerial phenomena.” The project was run out of the Pentagon by a man named Luis Elizondo who has since resigned from the Defense Department and is running a private UFO research organization.
While a subsequent story in New York Magazine suggests that there was less than met the eye to the story, mostly due to a dearth of fact checking, a great deal of excitement was kindled in the media. Has the Defense Department discovered evidence of aliens visiting the Earth? If so, why is no one taking about it? Fox Mulder, call your office.
The more fascinating aspect of the story was how the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification program came to be. More than 10 years ago, Nevada hotel tycoon and aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow called then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to discuss his theories about aliens visiting the Earth. Reid, intrigued no doubt at the possibility of rewarding an important campaign contributor, arranged for the project to be funded, along with then Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) without a debate on the Senate floor. The project was part of the Pentagon’s black budget.
The funding was directed to Bigelow Aerospace, which conducted the research. The subcontractors hired by Bigelow collected audio and video recordings of UFO encounters and interviewed people who had close contact with the encounters. Some were examined for physical effects of their close encounters.
The story would be just another example of pork barrel spending arranged by a powerful senator for a constituent had it not been about such an exotic subject. Americans have been conditioned to think that at least some UFO phenomenon are alien in origin from movies and TV shows such as “The X-Files.” Many also believe that the government knows about alien visitations and is covering it up for its own nefarious reasons.
The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of UFO incidents can be explained by natural phenomena, misidentified aircraft, and even hoaxes. A handful of instances remain unexplained. However, evidence of alien visitation is thin at best.
A simple thought experiment would suggest that if aliens were visiting the Earth, no one would know about it. Modern militaries have the ability to observe enemies undetected with remotely piloted, stealthy drones. An advanced civilization would be able to do the same to Earth without using huge spaceships hovering about for all to see. Tiny, even microscopic probes would suffice to gather all the data needed about the planet and its volatile inhabitants without anyone being the wiser.
Nor is a vast, government conspiracy to conceal the truth about UFOs likely. According to the BBC, an Oxford mathematician David Grimes concluded that the more people are in on a conspiracy, the sooner it is likely to come to light. That’s why people find out about real conspiracies, such as Watergate and Iran Contra, and they find that phony conspiracies, such as faking the moon landing, 9/11 being an inside job, and aliens landed at Roswell do not exist.
Does that mean we should ignore unexplained UFO phenomena? Decidedly not. If the small number of unexplained UFO phenomena are not aliens, they could constitute a threat of a more terrestrial origin.
However, Bigelow, for all of his accomplishments, is the wrong man to conduct such a study. He is too emotionally invested in alien visitation to have an open mind. A serious examination of UFOs should be conducted by scientists and other experts with no preconceived notions, much like the Air Force’s Project Blue Book of the 1950s and 1960s. The study should be done as transparently as possible, so that its results will be widely accepted by all but the most credulous.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.
PENTAGON 'UFO COVER UP': Area 51 whistleblower on US Government and military sightings
PENTAGON 'UFO COVER UP': Area 51 whistleblower on US Government and military sightings
A FORMER senior Pentagon official has spoken about the US Government's handling of alleged UFOs witnessed by military personnel. Chris Mellon, who served deputy assistant secretary of defence for intelligence in the Bill Clinton and George W Bush administrations, said the US is ignoring UFO sightings made by military personal at a risk to national security.
Mr Mellon had high-level clearance, was on a committee with oversight of all Department of Defence (DoD) special access programmes, spent a decade on the Senate Intelligence Committee and also work on classified projects at the Area 51 top secret US Air Force base in Nevada.
He is now part of the To The Stars Academy UFO research group formed by former Blink 182 singer Tom DeLongue, which has released a number of US military videos seemingly showing UFOs.
Mr Mellon said the unexplained craft in these videos could be proof of visiting aliens or that the Chines or Russians have developed far superior technology to the US.
Mr Mellon wrote that the government needs to do far more to investigate reports of unexplained objects flying around the sky.
Chris Mellon*To The Stars Academy
Chris Mellon (pictured) says UFOs are ignored by US Government.
Those might not be the work of alien civilisations – but if they are not, they appear to suggest that another Earth-bound country such as China or Russia has technology that we do not know about.
Chris Mellon
Writing in The Washington Post, he said: "A number of videos of US pilots encountering unexplained objects appear to suggest that there exists aircraft far superior to anything known to be held by America or its allies.
"Those might not be the work of alien civilisations – but if they are not, they appear to suggest that another Earth-bound country such as China or Russia has technology that we do not know about.
"Either way, the strange and unexplained videos appear to suggest that there is something that urgently needs to be investigated.
"But up and down the chain of command in the Pentagon people are anxious about treating the bizarre videos as connected events rather than strange individual occurrences.
“If these craft mean that Russia, China or some other nation is concealing an astonishing technological breakthrough to quietly extend its lead, surely we should respond as we did then
”Perhaps Russian President Vladi mir Putin’s recent chest-thumping claims about propulsion breakthroughs are not pure braggadocio.
“Or, if these craft really aren’t from Earth, then the need to figure out what they are is even more urgent.”
However, he said the issue was not addressed as senior intelligence officials feared being ridiculed for taking it seriously.
He added: “But nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue.
”This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.”
Mr Mellon spoke out after the To The Stars Academy released a third video filmed by a US Navy pilot radar allegedly showing a UFO.
The case was looked at by the US Department of Defense (DoD) Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP) which ran from 2007 to 2012, but was disbanded after being branded ineffective.
Neither the DoD or US Pentagon will comment on Mr Mellon's claims.
These unidentified flying objects do not belong to our earthly enemies
These unidentified flying objects do not belong to our earthly enemies
The Washington Daily News on July 28, 1952, following an alleged UFO sighting in the Washington metropolitan area.
(The Washington Daily News)
Christopher Mellon’s March 11 Outlook essay, “The Pentagon isn’t taking UFOs seriously enough,” described the refusal of the appropriate federal agencies to deal rationally with this latest flurry of reports of unidentified flying objects. (That is what they are, despite hesitancy to use that loaded term.)
Any concern that potential enemies have vastly superior military aircraft is seriously misplaced, for flying objects having radical shapes and spectacularly superior performance have been detected visually by military and airline pilots and confirmed by both civil and military radar since the 1940s. Had Russia or North Korea or Iran or anyone else possessed such craft, there would have been multiple opportunities to use them to our everlasting detriment.
Don Berliner, Alexandria
The writer is a former chairman of the board of the now-defunct Fund for UFO Research.
A group co-founded by former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge has got their hands on some declassified UFO footage shot by the US Navy in 2015.
The video, which was released by To The Stars Academy on Friday under the name GO FAST, was attained by a freedom of information request, according to the group. The group says it is footage from an F/A-18 Super Hornet equipped with a [takes a deep breath] Raytheon AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared, which works as a camera.
You can watch it below.
The video shows two pilots conversing as they encounter an unidentified flying object that has no wings or tail over an undisclosed portion of the east coast. Even though it’s rapidly moving, the object shows no sign of an exhaust plume—something that occurs on the majority of flying objects. The video starts with one of the Navy officers zooming in on the object which appears to be moving quickly over the ocean.
“Whoooooaaaaa, got it,” exclaims the officer. After a brief bit of laughter, one of the two excitedly asks, “What the fuck is that thing?” They then discuss how they are tracking it before they again start to excitingly talk about what they’re seeing.
“Oh my gosh, dude,” says one to which the other responds with “Wow! What is that, man? Look at it flying!”
DeLonge has long been a believer in aliens, an obsession that has bled into his music—most prominently in the band Angels & Airwaves and in the Blink 182 song “Aliens Exist” that appeared on the band’s massive album Enema of the State.
DeLonge, for a time, actually quit music to focus on studying UFOs full-time. That said, To The Stars Academy isn’t run solely by a former pop-punk prince, but is instead headed up by James Semivan, a former CIA agent, and Hal Puthoff, a former NASA and US Department of Defense adviser.
If Go Fast is indeed legit, it is now the third in a trilogy of videos that have been released by the government in recent time. Late last year, the New York Times published a blockbuster story outlining a secret Pentagon program which investigated UFOs and included two videos—the program allegedly ended in 2012. Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence who now works with DeLonge, bemoaned the end of the program and the fact that there seems to be no interest in investigating these sightings in an editorial for the Washington Post regarding GO FAST.
“Nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue,” wrote Mellon. “This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.”
Speaking with CNN, Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (the program outlined in the NYT story) who now works with To The Stars Academy, said that the Department of Defense approved the release and that To The Stars went through the proper channels to attain the video. He also noted how similar it was to the videos released by the NYT and that while it may not necessarily be from the creatures from above, it’s still fucking weird.
"It could be anything, so I wouldn't rule anything out, and that's why I think we need to look at it," Elizondo said. "I mean it could be Russian. It could be Chinese. It could be little green men from Mars.”
The Phoenix Lights still fascinate, 21 years later
The Phoenix Lights still fascinate, 21 years later
PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Did you happen to see what happened in the night skies over Phoenix, 21 years ago Tuesday night?
Some say it was only flares dropped by air force fighters.
Some say it was hot air balloons.
Others, however, say what they saw over the Valley that night was much more, and more are coming forward about it all the time. The sightings over Phoenix that night would become known as the Phoenix Lights.
"We have come such a long way in 21 years," said Lynne Kitei. "Some people saw these things take off at great speed without even dispersing the air."
Years later, the sightings would become part of a book, The Phoenix Lights, a graphic novel, and documentary film, all by Kitei, Phoenix physician who witnessed the Phoenix Lights, but didn't come forward until seven years later.
"So many people are afraid to come forward because they are so ostracized," said Kitei.
But what were the Phoenix Lights? Most would say it's one of the most widely reported UFO sightings of all time.
"On March 13 1997, while thousands of people were looking at the sky to see the Hale-Bopp Comet, they also caught a glimpse to a mile even larger, these orbs of light in a 'V' formation, equidistantly spaced," said Kitei.
What's changed 21 years later? Plenty, according to Kitei.
"New York Times had a big article announcing the UFO disclosure by the Department of Defense," said Kitei. "The Pentagon actually has been studying these phenomenon."
The report lit a fire among those who believe the truth is out there, and more witnesses keep coming forward, like Dr. Brad Evans. The behaviorist and neuropsychologist says he and his wife saw the Phoenix Lights, while driving north on I-10.
"These were very distinct, round, crystal clear lights," said Evans, who is also a pilot, and once told his wife he had seen it all.
"Pretty suddenly she pointed ahead," said Evans. "She said, 'well, what's that then?' I said I had no idea."
The craft Evans says he saw was fast, and big.
"In an instant, they were directly overhead as if there was no time in between," said Evans. "You could clearly see one light, two football fields best guess, to the west, easily two football fields for the other light east of I-10."
Why did Evans wait 21 years to speak out? As a psychiatrist, he had seen what happened to professionals who spoke out before.
"Other folks, I think, like us, repressed it," said Evans. "There was nothing to share. We didn't talk to anybody for months."
Now, however, Evans says people should speak out without fear.
"Write about it. Talk about it. Share the experience. Don't worry. It's 21 years ago," said Evans.
"The giggling and ridicule and snickering has gone on for much too long," said Kitei. "It's really starting to dissipate."
Something else that's new is a Phoenix Lights exhibit at the Arizona Historical Museum in Tempe, where people can see a timeline of the sightings, as well as alternative theories to what happened that night.
While no one is sure what was really over the skies of Arizona 21 years ago, Kitei says the most important thing is to keep asking questions.
"We may not have the technology yet to define what these things are. That doesn't mean they aren't real," said Kitei.
We have a whole lot of Fox Mulders out there who want to believe. But we also have a whole lot of Dana Scullys who are chiming in about what the video shows.
First, take a look at the video.
To The Stars says the video, caught with an infrared camera system, comes from a US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet flight in 2015. It appears to show a fast-moving UFO flying over water. One of the voices on the video seems to be a pilot saying, "Wow! What is that, man?"
The video is only a few seconds long. "The Department of Defense did not release those videos. I cannot confirm their authenticity. I don't have any additional info to provide," said Tom Crosson, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
To The Stars calls the UFO an "unidentified vehicle." Mick West, who operates the Metabunk debunking website, has a much different idea.
"I think the most likely explanation is that it's a relatively slow-moving object like a bird or a balloon," he tells me. "The jet filming it is moving fast, so this creates an illusion of speed against the ocean, especially after the targeting system locks on."
Alien aficionados won't like West's explanation, but he and some fellow skeptics have analyzed the footage in great detail on Metabunk, if you want to dive into the fascinating thought process that led to the bird-or-balloon theory.
So why are people so ready to believe a blip in a video is aliens and not a bird?
Nickell thinks some of it ties in with the naturally self-centered human worldview. He says we see mythical creatures like Bigfoot as a remnant of the human past, and big-eyed, big-headed aliens as a futuristic version of us. We would like to think Earth would draw a highly advanced extraterrestrial race to come visit. "Hopes springs eternal," he says.
Aliens are exciting. Birds ... not so much. "It would be great to discover alien visitors, but you really need to fully eliminate the boring explanations first," West says.
West encourages viewers to pay attention to the audio of the pilots talking and note how it sounds like they're just having fun using the aircraft's advanced tracking system and aren't concerned about possibly spotting an alien spacecraft.
Unless further evidence comes to light, the entity in the video will remain a UFO in the strictest sense. It is an unidentified flying object. It's just that it's probably a bird or a balloon and not some bored aliens with an inconceivably high-tech spacecraft who've come to take a look at our planet.
“Wow. What is that, man?”Photo: To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science
Maybe the truth really is out there.
A UFO research group on Friday released a declassified Pentagon video that apparently shows a U.S. Navy aircraft encountering a UFO, the third such video released in recent months. Published by the group To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, whose founders include former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge, the video shows a Navy F-18 fighter jet filming a mysterious aircraft off the East Coast in 2015.
“What the fuck is that thing?” someone says after after locking in on the object. “Wow, what is that, man?”
The oddities of the newly released video include the vehicles lack of wings and, as Popular Mechanics notes, its apparent coldness.
There are several unusual things about this sighting. For one, the UFO does not have an hot exhaust trail typical of that emitted by any sort of conventional turbine engine. In fact, the UFO appears “cold” to the ATFLIR sensor, emitting no heat at all.
Elizondo, who has advocated for more government transparency on unidentified flying objects, told CNN that he doesn’t know what the object is but that there should be more conversation about it. “It could be anything, so I wouldn’t rule anything out, and that’s why I think we need to look at it,” Elizondo said. “I mean it could be Russian. It could be Chinese. It could be little green men from Mars.”
Oddly, this is only the second-weirdest piece of space-related news this week, trailing NASA’s revelation that astronaut Scott Kelly’s DNA transformed during the year he spent in space. Now his DNA no longer matches that of his twin brother, Mark, who was on Earth while Scott was in orbit.
‘They investigated quite significantly’: Canadian government researched UFO sightings
‘They investigated quite significantly’: Canadian government researched UFO sightings
CTV Winnipeg
Though many people may be quick to dismiss a UFO sighting as nothing but a myth, recently discovered documents show that at one point the Canadian government took them seriously.
Science writer Chris Rutkowski, an alumnus of the University of Manitoba, discovered documents in the National Archives dating back to 1967 that show UFO sighting were once investigated.
“They investigated quite significantly a number of cases and a few in particular were ones that they described as very unexplained or of especially interest,” he said.
PHOTOS
Rutkowski said the reports were from qualified personnel and were investigated by other qualified personnel. At times, post-secondary institutions like U of M helped out with the analysis.
The briefing shows there was a jump in reports from about 40 to 167 between 1966 and 1967.
In many instances, no explanation was found for the sightings.
“In some cases there were very reputable observers, some of these were radar operators and yet they had experienced and seen something that couldn’t be explained. To me that says there’s a real phenomenon that needs investigation.”
Physicist Stephen Hawking died at his home in Cambridge, England, on Wednesday.
Hawking’s earliest astrophysics work posited the existence of singularities, mathematically conforming black holes with Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Hawking established, along with Roger Penrose, the universe’s origin as a singularity, i.e., a point in spacetime where traditional physical laws break down and gravity becomes infinite. His later work in quantum mechanics, inspired by collaboration with Soviet scientists Yakov Zel’dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, would mathematically indicate the finite entropy and evaporation of black holes as they emitted particles that came to be known as Hawking radiation. Though widely accepted as a breakthrough in theoretical physics, Hawking radiation and its resulting micro black holes have yet to be observed in experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
His work in theoretical astrophysics (and the 1988 publication of his bestselling bookA Brief History of Time) made Hawking a celebrity—including appearances on Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Simpsons and Futurama—which allowed Hawking a prominent public platform for his beliefs outside of physics. An atheist, anti-war activist, BDS supporter and anti-capitalist, the overlap between Hawking’s humanist politics and scientific interests found expression in his repeated public statements on the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial life.
Hawking took a conflicted position on alien life, at once promoting the search for extraterrestrial life and warning about the potential dangers of first contact with an alien species. His position on extraterrestrial life advocates two approaches: collecting intel and keeping as quiet as possible.
“There is no bigger question,” Hawking said, while announcing his support for Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million program to search for alien communications via radio wave and visible light observations of 1 million nearby stars and 100 galactic centers. “It is time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth.”
In 2010, Hawking worried what that answer would bring, describing the dangers of first contact with aliens in a Discovery Channel documentary. “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” Hawking says. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
“Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach,” Hawking said in the documentary, Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.
Stephen Hawking speaks on stage during a Breakthrough Starshot press conference at One World Observatory in New York City on April 12, 2016. Breakthrough Starshot is one of a number of projects by the Breakthrough Initiative, who also organised Breakthrough Listen.
BRYAN BEDDER/STRINGER/GETTY IMAGES
Absent knowledge about alien life, Hawking urged documentary viewers to analogize their likely behavior to ours. Hawking noted that first encounters throughout our own history rarely begin with: “I’ll pop the kettle on. Milk? Sugar?”
He would reiterate this theme in a later documentary. “One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this," he says in Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places of the newly discovered world of Gliese 832c. “But we should be wary of answering back.”
During the announcement for Breakthrough Listen, Hawking said: “We don’t know much about aliens, but we know about humans. If you look at history, contact between humans and less intelligent organisms have often been disastrous from their point of view, and encounters between civilizations with advanced versus primitive technologies have gone badly for the less advanced. A civilization reading one of our messages could be billions of years ahead of us. If so, they will be vastly more powerful, and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria.”
While Hawking expresses near certainty that alien life exists in the universe, he does not believe aliens have visited Earth in UFOs or at any point in history. “Why hasn’t the Earth been visited, and even colonised?” Hawking wrote on his official website. “I discount suggestions that UFOs contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant.”
In the essay Hawking describes some of the possibilities for the universe’s seeming silence, speculating that intelligence may be one of many possible evolutionary outcomes or, mostly darkly of all, the possibility that “intelligent life destroys itself.”
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Daytime UFOs caught on tape over Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Daytime UFOs caught on tape over Lachine, Quebec, Canada
Here’s one new footage of a bright unidentified flying objects in the sky above Lachine in Quebec, Canada. This was filmed back in September 2016 but it was just submitted to MUFON.
Witness report:
I can only describe those objects as these reflective and glowing. Flying in one path never changing direction. The sun that day was pretty bright, bright enough to make my eyes water, which made it difficult to record them.
New Horizons passed Pluto in 2015. With public input, the mission team has nicknamed the spacecraft’s next target – on the fringes of our solar system – Ultima Thule.
This image shows New Horizons’ current position along its full planned trajectory toward MU69, now nicknamed Ultima Thule. The green segment of the line shows where the spacecraft has traveled since launch; the red indicates the spacecraft’s future path.
Some 115,000 people from around the world recently suggested some 34,000 possible nicknames for the distant object 2014 MU69, the next target of the New Horizons spacecraft, whose historic sweep past Pluto took place in July 2015. The New Horizons mission team announced on March 13, 2018, it has selected the name Ultima Thule – pronounced ultima thoo-lee – for New Horizon’s next target, a Kuiper Belt object officially named 2014 MU69. New Horizons will sweep closest to Ultima Thule on January 1, 2019.
The mission team describes the object as:
… the most primitive world ever observed by spacecraft, in the farthest planetary encounter in history.
In a statement, the team explained their reasons for their choice:
Thule was a mythical, far-northern island in medieval literature and cartography. Ultima Thule means “beyond Thule” – beyond the borders of the known world – symbolizing the exploration of the distant Kuiper Belt and Kuiper Belt objects that New Horizons is performing, something never before done.
Alan Stern (@AlanStern on Twitter) of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is New Horizons’ principal investigator. He said:
MU69 is humanity’s next Ultima Thule. Our spacecraft is heading beyond the limits of the known worlds, to what will be this mission’s next achievement. Since this will be the farthest exploration of any object in space in history, I like to call our flyby target Ultima, for short, symbolizing this ultimate exploration by NASA and our team.
View larger. | Artist’s conception of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69 – now nicknamed Ultima Thule – on January 1, 2019. This object orbits a billion miles (1.6 billion km) beyond Pluto. Evidence gathered from Earth suggests it might be a binary (double) or multiple object.
NASA and the New Horizons team launched the nickname campaign in early November. Hosted by the SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, and led by Mark Showalter, an institute fellow and member of the New Horizons science team, the online contest sought nominations from the public and stipulated that a nickname would be chosen from among the top vote-getters.
The campaign wrapped up on December 6, after a five-day extension to accommodate more voting. Of the 34,000 names suggested, 37 reached the ballot for voting and were evaluated for popularity. This included eight names suggested by the New Horizons team and 29 nominated by the public.
The team then narrowed its selection to the 29 publicly nominated names and gave preference to names near the top of the polls. Names suggested included Abeona, Pharos, Pangu, Rubicon, Olympus, Pinnacle and Tiramisu. Final tallies in the naming contest posted here.
About 40 members of the public nominated the name Ultima Thule. This name was one of the highest vote-getters among all name nominees.
Showalter said:
We are grateful to those who proposed such an interesting and inspirational nickname. They deserve credit for capturing the true spirit of exploration that New Horizons embodies.
After the flyby, NASA and the New Horizons team say they’ll choose a formal name to submit to the International Astronomical Union, based in part on whether MU69 is found to be a single body, a binary pair, or perhaps a system of multiple objects.
Astronomers found evidence that compounds on Ceres formed from liquid water in the recent geologic past.
Distribution and intensity of the carbonate absorption in VIR data.
Image credit: Carrozzo et al., Sci. Adv. 2018;4: e1701645
In a way, Ceres is both big and small. It’s the largest object in the asteroid belt, but it’s still a dwarf planet — and it’s much too small to be really considered a planet. About four times smaller than the moon, Ceres has a diameter of approximately 945 kilometers. It was first discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi and considered a planet, but was then relegated to asteroid status. But this doesn’t mean that Ceres isn’t exciting in its own right.
The NASA spacecraft Dawn entered orbit around Ceres on 6 March 2015, allowing astronomers to study it in unprecedented detail. In a new study, authors report that Ceres is still evolving.
Using the visible-infrared mapping spectrometer aboard Dawn, they observed significant quantities of magnesium-calcium carbonates covering most of the dwarf planet. Finding carbonates — a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3) — is extremely important since it is usually a sign of water. Judging by the current analysis, astronomers now believe water amounts to about 30% of the dwarf planet’s mass.
Carbonates are abundant and ubiquitous across the surface, but variations in the strength and position of infrared spectral absorptions indicate variations in the composition and amount of these minerals. Also, not all carbonates are hydrated, and therefore not all of them can be connected to water.
Some carbonate patches featured sodium carbonate in its hydrated form — which is a clear indication of liquid water. Pictured is the distribution of water ice (left), sodium carbonate (center) and hydrated sodium carbonate (right) in a crater on Ceres.
Credits: Carozzo et al.
Ceres appears to have differentiated rocky core and an icy mantle. Researchers have known for quite a while that Ceres probably had liquid water in its recent history (and perhaps still has), but the wide distribution of carbonates, and therefore, the water, is surprising.
“The different chemical forms of the sodium carbonate, their fresh appearance, morphological settings, and the uneven distribution on Ceres indicate that the formation, exposure, dehydration, and destruction processes of carbonates are recurrent and continuous in recent geological time, implying a still-evolving body and modern processes involving fluid water,” the researchers write.
Patches of hydrated sodium carbonate (green and red) were found around craters with domes or mounds by the team.
Image credits: Carozzo et al.
The authors suggest that the connection between carbonates and extrusive surfaces implies that carbonates are possibly brought to the surface by rising subsurface fluids. This could indicate that beneath a frozen surface, there is an ocean of liquid water. The carbonate mapping indicates active geological processes such as upwelling, excavation, and exposure of salts.
Ceres doesn’t get nearly as much love as Pluto does, but given recent findings, perhaps it should.
Déjà vu, pronounced ‘day-zhaa voo’, is French for ‘already seen.’ It describes the eerie sensation of familiarity in a seemingly new setting and environment. For instance, you may have found yourself in the middle of a conversation thinking to yourself that this exact exchange has taken place before. Or you may have walked into a totally new environment, and said to yourself “I’ve been here before!”. It’s all strangely familiar, but you can’t quite wrap your mind around the whole thing. In a sense, it’s a bit like seeing into the future.
Déjà vu is commonly featured in pop culture. Inthe movie The Matrix, adéjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix — a computer-generated dream world, built to keep us under control while a cybernetic organism farms our bodies. But despite most people (60-80%) reporting that they have experienced the unsettling feeling at least once in their lifetimes, déjà vu has been startling understudied. To researchers’ credit, the fleeting, uncontrollable nature of déjà vu has made it difficult to study.
Scientists have proposed various hypotheses for déjà vu formation in the brain. According to one theory, the phenomenon might arise due to some sort of “mismatch” in how we’re simultaneously sensing and perceiving the world around us. Another theory suggests that the brain may occasionally take a short-cut to long-term memory storage, bypassing short-term working memory, evoking the sensation that of experiencing something in the distant past. The mainstream line of thinking is that déjà vu is a product of false memories — glitches in our neural matrix.
“[Déjà vu] is certainly related to false memory in the sense that it is a memory dissociation kind of effect. It dissociates reality from your memory,” said Valerie F. Reyna, a psychologist and Professor of Human Development at Cornell University and an expert on false memory and risky decision making.
“There’s all kinds of different dissociative experiences that can happen. Sometimes you cannot be sure, for example, if you dreamed something or experienced it, if you saw it in a movie or it happened in real life.”
But in 2016, Akira O’Connor, a psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Britain, found that the phenomenon might be the result of front regions of the brain ‘fact checking’ our memories and sending signals when it encounters a sort of error. This error generates a conflict between what we’ve actually experienced and what we think we’ve experienced. By this explanation, déjà vu represents a mechanism that ensures that we don’t form false memories, or at least keeps them to a minimum, and is not the product of false memories themselves. This may also explain why the phenomenon is far more common in younger people, since memory deteriorates with age.
“Déjà vu is characterized by having a false sensation of familiarity, alongside the awareness that that sense of familiarity cannot possibly be correct,” O’Connor said. “It’s a memory clash where there’s false familiarity, together with an objective awareness that it can’t be real.”
O’Connor and colleagues enlisted 21 volunteers, who each were exposed to a list of words related to sleep — such as bed, pillow, night, or dream — but not the keyword itself that links all of them together. The participants were then asked whether they had heard the word ‘sleep’. Those who responded affirmatively were then asked whether they had heard any word from the previous list start with the letter “s”, to which they responded negatively. The resulting confusion triggered déjà vu in two-thirds of participants.
The next step was to scan the brains of the participants with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine to see which brain regions lit up when the experience took place.
“What we found was that it wasn’t memory-linked regions that are driving déjà vu,” he said. “Traditionally, researchers thought déjà vu was being driven by false memories. What it actually is is that the cognitive control, error-monitoring conflict-checking frontal brain regions are the ones which show greater activity in people reporting the experience.”
What does this mean for people who have never had déjà vu? Well, it may mean that these people don’t reflect on their memory system. On the other hand, people who don’t have déjà vu might simply have a better memory than the general population, so there’s no risk of triggering memory errors.
As to why people have déjà vu in the first place, the jury isn’t out yet. It may be an evolutionary product that makes people more cautious when memory is playing tricks on us, but there’s no evidence backing this idea up yet.
We can never enter into contact with extraterrestrial civilizations
We can never enter into contact with extraterrestrial civilizations
While signals from alien civilizations have reached the Earth, there is a high probability that by this time all the aliens have long been dead. To such conclusions came a group of American astronomers led by the Swiss researcher Claudio Grimaldi, who decided to turn again to the famous Drake equation, a formula designed to determine the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy, with which humanity has a chance to come into contact.
In their work, the researchers calculated the area of that region of the galaxy through which the extraterrestrial signals must pass. According to Drake himself, civilizations are born and die at a constant rate. With the death of civilization, the transmission of messages also ceases. However, already sent signals continue their journey through the galaxy, as the circles diverge on the water. As a result, most of the galaxy is filled with messages from dead aliens.
The Milky Way’s diameter is one hundred thousand light-years, while the solar system is located about 26,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy. Scientists believe that most developed civilizations capable of sending radio signals do not exist for more than one hundred thousand years. Therefore, the chances of receiving a message from aliens still broadcasting at the moment are very small. The same mankind sends signals to space for about 80 years, so radio waves from Earth have covered less than 0.001 percent of the area of the galaxy. “If a civilization living on the other side of the galaxy sends a message, then by the time this message reaches us, this civilization is already going to die out,” says physicist Claudio Grimaldi of the Lausanne Federal Polytechnic School.
But one debunking expert said it was more likely to have a natural explanation, according to the Daily Express.
'I think it's a small object crossing the lunar disc like a mylar balloon. There are many similar footages like this,' said Scott Brando of ufoofinterest.org
It comes after the pilot of a US Navy jet was shocked after he witnessed a mysterious object streak across the sky just above the Atlantic Ocean.
It comes after the pilot of a US Navy jet was shocked after he witnessed a mysterious object streak across the sky just above the Atlantic Ocean
The pilot yelled 'What the f*** is that thing?' as his sensors locked in on the mysterious object.
Earlier this month some UFO spotters claimed another sighting when an unexplained silver sphere was seen hanging in the sky above upstate New York on Google Street View.
But many viewers were not convinced, saying the orb was nothing more than a splash of water on the camera lens.
New footage of a bright orbs in the sky above Phoenix, Arizona filmed on 14th March 2018.
Witness report:
I looked out my window and seen a red dot orb moving where I usually see activity. I went out and captured the red dot breifly, but then noticed an orb that seemed to possibly morph into plane.
I looked out my window and seen a red dot orb moving where I usually see activity. I went out and captured the red dot briefly, but then noticed an orb that seemed to possibly morph into plane.
I have been wondering if they are morphing into planes, but this maybe some evidence. After if morphed it came over my APT and did have sound, but as you can see it moved in one place for a while then changes into 2 lights.
Another artist's concept showing NASA's Mars 2020 rover exploring Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA's next Mars rover won't just explore the Red Planet; it will, the space agency hopes, make it so a little bit of Mars might make it to Earth. Known as Mars 2020, the upcoming rover will hunt for signs of habitable environments on Mars while searching for signs of past microbial life. The robotic traveler will also cache a series of samples that can be returned to Earth with a future mission.
The mission is currently slated to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in July or August 2020, when Earth and Mars are positioned to require the least amount of power for interplanetary travel. It is scheduled to land in February 2021, with an initial mission duration of at least one Martian year, or 687 Earth-days.
The car-sized rover is about 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide, and 7 feet tall (about 3 meters long, 2.7 meters wide, and 2.2 meters tall). At 2,314 lbs. (1,050 kilograms), it weighs less than a compact car.
Mixing old and new
If photos and sketches of the Mars 2020 rover look familiar, that's because the robotic explorer is largely based off its predecessor, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)'s Curiosity rover. Roughly 85 percent of the new rover's mass is based on this "heritage hardware."
"The fact that so much of the hardware has already been designed — or even already exists — is a major advantage for this mission," Jim Watzin, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a statement. "It saves us money, time and most of all, reduces risk."
Like Curiosity, Mars 2020 will have a rectangular body, six wheels, an arm and hand, cameras and instruments, and a drill for sampling rocks. But the new rover has different goals that require a suite of cutting-edge instruments. Using an X-ray spectrometer and an ultraviolet laser, Mars 2020 will seek out bio-signatures from the past on a microbial scale. A ground-penetrating radar will be the first instrument to look under the surface of Mars, mapping layers of rock, water and ice up to 30 feet (10 m) deep.
"Our next instruments will build on the success of MSL, which was a proving ground for new technology," said George Tahu, NASA's Mars 2020 program executive. "These will gather science data in ways that weren't possible before."
These upgrades will kick in before the rover ever touches the surface of Mars. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is developing and managing the mission for the space agency, is developing a new landing technology called terrain-relative navigation. As the mission hardware approaches the Martian surface, it will use a computer to compare the landscape with pre-loaded terrain maps, guiding the descending mission to a safe landing site and making corrections on the way down.
A related feature, known as a range trigger, will use location and velocity to determine when to open the spacecraft's parachute, narrowing the landing ellipse by more than half.
"Terrain-relative navigation enables us to go to sites that were ruled too risky for Curiosity to explore," said JPL's Al Chen, the Mars 2020 entry, descent and landing lead. "The ranger trigger lets us land closer to areas of scientific interest, shaving miles — potentially as much as a year — off a rover's journey."
Cameras on the spacecraft will film the final journey, capturing the opening of the parachute and the slow drift to the Red Planet for the first time. That information will be sent back to Earth, where it will provide not only awe-inspiring imagery but also scientific data about the planet's atmosphere. [VIDEO: Watch Mars 2020 Rover's Parachute Successfully Unfurl in Test Flight]
"It is quite a ride," Ian Clark of JPL, the test's technical lead, said in a statement. "The imagery of our first parachute inflation is almost as breathtaking to behold as it is scientifically significant. For the first time, we get to see what it would look like to be in a spacecraft hurtling towards the Red Planet, unfurling its parachute."
Illustration depicting the science instruments slated to be carried aboard NASA’s Mars 2020 rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Improved eyesight
Mars 2020 will boast nearly five times as many cameras as the first Mars rover. Sojourner carried only five cameras, and the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity were designed with 10 cameras apiece. Curiosity has 17.
The new rover will carry 23 cameras. Some will provide more color and 3D imaging than on Curiosity, according to Jim Bell of Arizona State University, Tempe, the principle investigator for 2020's Mastcam-Z. "Z" stands for "zoom," one of the improvements on Curiosity's high-definition Mastcam.
The engineering cameras for planning drives and avoiding hazards on Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity all captured 1-megapixel images in black and white. 2020's engineering cameras will acquire high-resolution, 20-megapixel color images. Their wider field of view means that, instead of spending time taking multiple images to be stitched together on the ground, the new cameras can capture the same view in a single snapshot. The cameras can also reduce motion blur, so they can snap images while the rover is traveling.
More detailed images mean more data to beam through space.
"The limiting factor in most imaging systems is the telecommunications link," Maki said. "Cameras are capable of acquiring much more data than can be sent back to Earth."
Smarter rover cameras are helping to reduce the load. On Spirit and Opportunity, compression was done on the onboard computer. Mars 2020, like Curiosity, will have its compression performed by electronics built into the camera.
Data will be beamed back to Earth through spacecrafts already orbiting Mars: NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), MAVEN and the European Space Agency's Trace Gas Orbiter. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter was the first orbiter to send rover data home from Spirit and Opportunity.
"We were expecting to do that mission on just tens of megabits each Mars day, or sol," Bell said. "When we got that first Odyssey overflight, and we had about 100 megabits per sol, we realized it was a whole new ballgame."
Mars 2020 will also carry a microphone, which can relay the sounds of the Red Planet back to Earth.
"There's a lot of good science that can be done by having a microphone on Mars," Sylvestre Maurice, a planetary scientist at the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology in France, told Space.com. He and his colleagues investigated the possibility of pairing a microphone with a laser that will be used to vaporize rocks on the Martian surface.
In addition to gathering science, a microphone would represent a public relations coup, Maurice said.
"It will be the first time we can listen to a sound on Mars," he said.
NASA has decided on three potential landing sites for the upcoming Mars 2020 mission: Northeast Syrtis, Jezero crater and Columbia Hills.
Credit: NASA
Landing on Mars
As of March 2018, the final landing site for Mars 2020 had not yet been selected. In February 2017, a team of scientists narrowed down the list to three: Columbia Hills, Jezero Crater and Northeast Syrtis.
One site has been explored before. Starting in 2004, the Mars exploration rover Spirit explored Gusev Crater and Columbia Hills, where the rover discovered evidence of past water, the only place it found water in the enormous crater. Later data analysis suggested that the crater may have once hosted a shallow lake.
The Jezero Crater is an ancient lakebed where microbial life could have developed, NASA officials said in a statement. The river delta structure suggests that water filled and drained from the site at least twice, and MRO has identified minerals that have been chemically altered by water.
An ancient volcano in Northeast Syrtis could have led to hot springs and melting ice, creating the ideal conditions for past microbial life. The edge of the Syrtis Major volcanoes exposes 4-billion-year-old bedrock, as well as many minerals altered by the encounter during the Red Planet's early history.
The final selection of the landing site should come during a workshop in either 2018 or 2019, the researchers said during a 2015 meeting.
"In the coming years, the 2020 science team will be weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each of these sites," Mars 2020 project scientist Ken Farley said. "It is by far the most important decision we have ahead of us."
Bringing samples home
Unlike previous rovers, Mars 2020 will prepare samples to return to Earth. The rover will try to drill at least 20 rock cores, and possible more than 30 or 40. Samples will be secured in sample tubes and deposited at select locations for return on a potential future sample-retrieval mission. Such a mission has not yet been selected, so the samples may have to wait for years to hitch a ride back to Earth.
"The Mars 2020 rover is the first step in a potential multi-mission campaign to return carefully selected and sealed samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth," Geoffrey Yoder, then-acting associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C., said in a 2016 statement. "This mission marks a significant milestone in NASA's Journey to Mars — to determine whether life has ever existed on Mars, and to advance our goal of sending humans to the Red Planet."
Assuming the samples make it to Earth, scientists will be able to use powerful instruments to provide a more in-depth examination than can be carried on the car-sized rover.
The Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) laser instrument will be the first instrument on Mars to use Ramen and fluorescence spectroscopies, techniques familiar to forensics experts. When an ultraviolet light shines over certain carbon-based chemicals, they glow much like material beneath a black light. The glow can help scientists to detect chemicals that form in the presence of life. SHERLOC will photograph the rocks it studies, then maps the chemicals it detects across the images.
"This kind of science requires texture and organic chemicals — two things that our target meteorite will provide," Rohit Bhartia of JPL, SHERLOC's deputy principal investigator, said in a statement.
The rover will carry a small bit of the Martian meteorite known as Sayh al Uhaymir 008 (SaU008) to help calibrate SHERLOC. Previous rovers have included calibration targets, but none of them have ever relied on Martian meteorites. (A meteorite has, however, ridden to Mars aboard the Mars Global Surveyor, which continues to orbit Mars now that its mission has ended.)
Given the vastness of space, it has to be highly improbable that we’re alone. Still, if there are other intelligent civilizations out there, we have to detect them or their transmissions some day, right? That question been one of the biggest conundrums of astrophysics for years, and unfortunately we might never know the answer. Still, given the age of the known universe, the Earth and subsequently humankind are pretty young, cosmologically speaking. If there are (or were) any technologically advanced alien civilizations out there, we should be able to detect the various signals emitted by their technology – even if those aliens have been dead for ages. In fact, a new study claims that our galaxy could be filled with “ghost” signals from long-gone alien civilizations. Long-gone is better than never-was though, right?
I call dibs on their stuff.
The claim about ghost signals comes fom a team of astronomers and mathematicians from the SETI Institute and the University of California, Santa Cruz who have recently published a new calculation of the Drake equation. The authors include Frank Drake, author of the original Drake equation which is aimed at calculating the likelihood of discovering an alien civilization in our own galaxy. In a nutshell, the equation factors in the average rate of star formation per year observed in the Milky Way, the numbers of stars which host presumably habitable planets, and several hypothetical or currently unknowable variables like the fraction of habitable planets that actually go on to develop intelligent life. Since many of the variables aren’t able to be precisely calculated due to the limits of our knowledge and technology, the Drake equation is unsolvable.
And yet he got it published?
This new iteration of the equation seeks instead to calculate the probability that signals from any hypothetical alien civilizations might pass through our galaxy in a timeframe in which they can be discovered by humans. The new Drake equation factors in the speed of light, radio waves, and other electromagnetic radiation and assumes advanced civilizations only last for 100,000 years or less. With those new variables factored in, the odds are, well…
Wait for it…
Still astonishingly low. Terrifyingly low. Think about it: humanity has only been broadcasting (and therefore scanning for) radio transmissions for less than 100 years. Given the speed of radio waves, that means our transmissions are only detectable by the nearest 0.001 percent of the Milky Way. Given the sheer size of the galaxy, not to mention the universe, SETI has its work cut out for it. While the authors note that the likelihood is pretty slim that we will detect a technologically advanced alien race before human civilization comes crashing to a halt, some “ghost” signals from long-dead civilizations likely haunt the galaxy and could possibly even be discoverable right now. How bittersweet would that be, discovering our galactic neighbors only through their cosmic obituary? Sounds like a great premise for a one-shot Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.
There are many ways to portray an alien invasion in Science Fiction: The conspicuous in-your-face massive landings of extraterrestrial spacecraft –favored by summer blockbusters like Independence Day— or the more insidious form of a ‘silent invasion’, by way of infiltrating aliens that are indistinguishable from us into our communities or sensible military and/or civilian installations, so that these invaders can slowly but surely defeat us from within. This is undoubtedly the most disturbing form of alien invasion, because it could be happening right before our eyes and we wouldn’t even realize it… until it’s too late.
Some of the best examples of UFO-themed films make use of the alien infiltration plot: John Carpenter’s The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, They Live, etc. My friend and colleague Robbie Graham treated the subject at length on his seminal book Silver Screen Saucers. He also mentions how historians tend to treat these films as examples of the Cold War paranoia that spilled into many aspects of American culture —“anyonecould be a Commie traitor!”— and yet the reason why aliens are the ultimate ‘5th columnist’ in the popular imaginarium, is because since the beginning of the modern era of UFOs there were those who claimed contact with the occupants of those shiny flying saucers, and those UFOnauts looked just like usaccording to the excited accounts of the Contactees. Indeed, it would be later when we would get reports of ‘alien-er’ visitors sporting all sort of anomalous body lengths and features: from big-headed dwarves to spindly giants, with hairy trolls and goblins in-between.
Let’s take for example John Carpenter’s The Thing, which we mentioned earlier: The reason the movie is so particularly thrilling is not only because anyone –or anything!— could be the shapeshifting alien parasite, but also because the story takes place in one of the most alien environments in our own planet –a base in the middle of Antarctica. A place so inhospitable you can literally freeze just by taking a stroll outside if you’re not wearing the right gear. The landscape itself becomes another predator chasing after the movie heroes once they lose communication with the outside world, making the situation even more claustrophobic. You die if you leave, and you die if you stay.
Yep, The Thing is probably one of the few horror movies I actually like and rewatch regularly. “But let’s be serious here,”one might say: “The Contactees were all hoaxters and charlatans (Venusians? Gimme a break!) Besides, invaders that look like us and infiltrate sensitive facilities happen only in the movies and TV shows, right?”
“…Right?“
Well, that’s what I used to think, but once listened to the account of Mikey Kampmann, I’m not so sure anymore…
Now, you might not be familiar with the name of Mikey Kampmann, and there’s a good reason for that. He’s not part of any UFO lecturing circuit trying to peddle crazy stories about the Galactic Federation, or all the benevolent races trying to raise our ass to the 5th dimension and stuff. No, Mikey is just one of those adventuring types who felt the need to leave the small enclosures of his hometown and travel to the farthest reaches of the planet. And by “farthest” I mean “end-of-the-freaking-world” farthest!
On episode 166 of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast, Mikey explains how he managed to get a job at the American south pole station for four months to fulfil a long-time dream. He doesn’t have any scientific or technical degrees, therefore he ended up as breakfast cook in charge of feeding 250 hungry base personnel each morning all by himself –so I guess in a John Carpenter-like scenario Mike would be Nauls, though I don’t know if he actually spent his tour roller-skating through the base’s corridors, at the beat of Stevie Wonder.
Mikey then goes to explain to Duncan the hurdles and steps he took in order to apply for that position at the station (the physical examinations, making sure you don’t have any cavities, etc.). He also discusses the type of scientific work they conduct there (astronomy-related stuff) and other aspects of the daily life at the base, like the fact that during the summer months the sun is always up; which, although fascinating on some level, makes the listener think this is going to be a pretty ordinarychat –even for a DTFH show, which will ALWAYS be filled with philosophical and metaphysical ponderings.
But then, Mikey drops a bombshell of Cosmic Watergateproportions…
At around 36 minutes into the recording, the conversation veers toward the strange lore circulating around the base with regards to ‘aliens’: How his boss at the base told Mikey on his very first day how ‘the grays’ are not often seen during the summer “because they mostly come out in the winter.” Was the comment part of some sort of weird initiation ritual in order to have some fun and break the tedium at the expense of the ‘ice rookies’, or is this an indication of what psychologists would describe as ‘cabin fever syndrome’? Given the quirkness of human nature, one would tend to think it was perhaps a bit of both.
And yet Mikey then proceeds to recount one personalexperience he had inside the base, which would suggest perhaps there was something truly anomalous going on inside this remote station. The incident involved a couple (a man and a woman) who worked together in the kitchen with him; he explains how although they were a very lovable people and he got along great with them, there was something odd about these individuals he couldn’t quite put his finger on: Despite their claim that they came from Colorado “they had these accents that were bull$#!t” Mikey says, that made them sound foreign to him. The couple also said they had waited 3 whole years trying to get a job in Antarctica, whereas his own application only took a week at the most. Who spends 3 years of their lives waiting to go to Antarctica to become… a dishwasher??
One day the couple were at the dishpit and Mikey was bringing in some dirty dishes from the mess hall. The woman was standing right in front of the man, and as Mikey got closer he could hear they were having some sort of conversation; but he soon realized the man and a woman were not talking in anylanguage he’d ever heard before!
“It wasn’t English or Spanish, and I didn’t recognize it (…) it sounded DIGITAL, truly!” he explains to Duncan, who asks Mikey to try and imitate the sounds he heard. Mikey’s recorded rendition of the ‘language’ –which I encourage anyone to hear– does sound like clicks and ‘tsk tsk’ snaps made out with the tongue, but he claims they had a mechanical quality to them.
The woman –who had her back toward Mikey and therefore could not see him as he was approaching them– was the one speaking to her husband in those robotic squeaks; the man eventually saw Mikey out of the corner of his eye, then looked at her wife who was still ‘talking’ and said to her “stop!”.
Mikey does not explain what he exactly did after he finally reached out to where they were standing at the dishpit. My guess is he probably left his load of dirty dishes by the sink and walked out of there without saying a word to them –the way most of us would’ve reacted in such an awkward situation.
To this day Mikey has no clue as to what was going on between this dishwashing couple from Colorado and their bizarre form of communication. The ‘legends about the grays’ he and his co-workers used to engage in —“who do you think is an alien?”— were mostly fun to him and didn’t take them too seriously. But could the man and woman he worked in that kitchen day in and day out be actual alien infiltrators?
In truth, the evidence supporting that outlandish claim is rather tenuous a best. We only have the testimony of a single man who, as sincere and honest as he sounds in the recording as he retells the event, remains as fallible and prone to making mistakes as the rest of us. We also have to take into consideration the unusual circumstances in which the event took place (i.e. in the middle of the south pole!) which would surely take its toll even among the most stable of individuals. Mikey also doesn’t shy away from the fact that life inside the base could be pretty hectic –lots and lots of wild parties where excess of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity were the norm. Maybe Mikey was recovering from a bad hangover and imagined the whole thing up?
There are also other avenues to consider, of course: Duncan proposes to him during the episode that instead of being scouts of an alien invading force, that perhaps these guys were human agents at the service of a foreign power, using some sort of secret language in order to pass sensitive information covertly. Although that seems a more reasonable assumption, it is not without logical holes either –wouldn’t it be easier to communicate through other means that wouldn’t raise suspicions among your co-workers, like using numbers or code-words in English that would sound innocuous to any bystander casually listening in?
Here I could propose a third possibility: What if these people were actually agents working for some American intelligence group, who were conducting a covert test meant to study the reactions of the personnel stationed at the base when faced with non-ordinary situations? Something akin to what is popularly referred to as gaslighting?
One thing’s for sure, and that is that after that bizarre incident at the kitchen Mikey started to closely watch the movements of the dishwashing couple, trying to learn more about them. He would casually spy on the man and woman during their free time, as they would wander off visiting the areas of the station which weren’t restricted, just like everybody else; but he never observed them doing anything unusual, or caught them off guard while they were taking off their human skin to groom their reptilian scales.
And Mike turned out to be not that casual in his espionage hobby, as he nonchalantly started out a rumor around the base about the possible alien nature of the couple! By the end of the summer season during his last week at the base, he was eventually confronted by them during one of the farewell parties. But instead of being mad or assimilating him into the Borg for blowing their cover, they acted as if they were amused by his suspicions!
“You think I’m an alien?” the woman teasingly asked Mikey point blank.
“I… I don’t know!” was the only thing he could blurt out as a reply. He did bring up the event at the dishpit, but didn’t have the nerve to actually ask her about the weird clicks. The three of them just kept drinking, laughing and enjoying the party –now I LOVE this anecdote because it’s so ambiguous: Ultimately the woman never denied Mikey’s suspicions; she just deflected him in the most ingenious way and at the most appropriate time. If these were aliens, they were surely masters in human psychology.
Mikey ends up the account by saying how, in some sort of symbolic gesture and as a compulsory way to express their feelings of fondness for each other at that moment, the three of them –Mike, the wife and the husband– leaned over and dry-kissed.
…And that’s it. No further mention of a hot human/reptilian menage-a-trois (Sorry, Ben and Aaron!). A few days later Mikey packed up his bags and left the station, never to see the odd couple again. He was only left with an ineffable sense of love and unity with two beings… who may or may not have been from this Earth.
Because even if they were from another world, why feed our fears into thinking they are among us for nefarious purposes? As much as I am a fan of John Carpenter’s The Thing, I prefer stories like K-Pax or Starman, in which the alien is visiting us out of a sense of sheer curiosity, and a desire to reach out to without freaking us out with their sole presence.
Who knows, maybe there’s another parallel universe in which washing human dishes is considered the ultimate form of extreme resort. Think about that next time you eat at your local diner –and be sure to be generous with the tip.
One of the most significant UFO movies of the 1950s was Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), which was very loosely based on Donald Keyhoe’s 1953 non-fiction book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space. In the movie, the last of a dying species of aliens arrive on Earth seeking a new home. The aliens request a meeting with world leaders to discuss their plans for occupation, but the US military, assisted by one America’s top scientists (played by Hugh Marlowe), formulates a plan of attack involving the use of sonar canons mounted on trucks to be fired at the alien saucers—the sonar supposedly interfering with their propulsion and navigation systems, and disabling their force fields.
Conspiracy writer Kenn Thomas has noted that the fictional battle strategy in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers seems to have been directly inspired by real-life UFOlogical events which occurred just one year prior to the release of the movie when legendary scientist Wilhelm Reich claimed to have used his “cloudbuster” invention to attack UFOs (which he believed were hostile) by sucking the energy out of them. Reich’s cloudbuster was an atmospheric device constructed from two rows of 15-foot aluminium pipes mounted on trucks and connected to cables that were inserted into water. Its appearance and functionality were strikingly similar to that of the sonar cannons in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Reich believed that his cloudbusters served to unblock cosmic ‘orgone’ energy in the atmosphere, which he said would be beneficial to human health. Apparently, Reich also found them handy for shooting down alien spacecraft in what he described as a “full-scale interplanetary battle” in Tucson Arizona in 1955.
The cloudbuster cannon.
The production history of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is intriguing. In 1955, Donald Keyhoe, then a jagged thorn in the side of the US government’s UFO secret-keepers, was approached by a group of Hollywood producers seeking to buy the rights to his aforementioned non-fiction book. The producers told Keyhoe their film was to be a serious documentary about UFOs. Although initially suspicious, Keyhoe eventually went along with the deal. Big mistake. Upon its completion in 1956, the “documentary” turned out to be the schlock sci-fi B-movie of our discussion. Keyhoe was outraged and demanded that his name be removed from the film’s credits, to no avail. Someone, it seemed, had it in for this outspoken advocate for government transparency on UFOs (perhaps the same “someone” who, two years later, censored Keyhoe’s statement on live TV that flying saucers were “real machines under intelligent control”).
Donald Keyhoe.
Keyhoe’s book, despite its pulpy title, was a serious examination of UFOs that drew extensively from the USAF’s own investigations into the phenomenon. The movie that the book inspired, however, was an outlandish affair, depicting scientists and the military as combating ridiculous rubber-suited aliens with plans to occupy the Earth. This deviation into kitsch fantasy is especially frustrating because the film also retained a considerable amount of fact-based UFOlogical detail from Keyhoe’s source material. The film’s saucers, for example, designed by Ray Harryhausen with a stationary central dome and a rotating outer-rim with slotted vanes, were based exactly on real-life descriptions collated by Keyhoe. Harryhausen also sought advice on his saucer design from UFO “contactee” George Adamski. The shrill sound emitted by the movie’s saucers also has been a common feature in UFO close encounter reports from the 1940s to present day, with witnesses often associating high-pitch whirring, humming, or hissing sounds with UFOs.
Particularly interesting is a scene in which Foo Fighters make a casual appearance. The scene in question sees heroic scientist Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe), his wife Carol (Joan Taylor), and the latter’s father, General Hanley (Morris Ankrum), having a family lunch while discussing their work on Project Skyhook—an American space program that launches research satellites into orbit. Suddenly, two glowing balls of light appear above their house, hovering silently. “Look! What are those lights?” asks the General. “They’re what the pilots call ‘Foo lights,’” Carol replies, “there have been so many around the project the last couple of days we all just take them for granted.” This is an unmistakable reference not only to Foo Fighters, but also to the many anomalous fireballs reported by military personnel around sensitive government facilities in the late-1940s which resulted in Project Twinkle, a two-year study program at Holloman Air Force Base tasked with solving the mystery.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers even has echoes of Roswell in the form of its alien invaders, not as they appear in their cumbersome spacesuits, but in their true form underneath. When the protagonists remove the space-suit from one of the dead aliens, the being bears an uncanny likeness to the alleged Roswell beings as described by firsthand witnesses from 1947, but these testimonies would not come to light until more than twenty years after the release of Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. How do we account for this apparent cinematic prescience? Were the Roswell witnesses influenced after the fact by Hollywood, or was Hollywood influenced by intelligence operatives with knowledge of the Roswell Incident?
Glowing UFO Comes Out Of Side Of Colima Volcano And Shoots Away On Live Internet Cam! March 12, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Glowing UFO Comes Out Of Side Of Colima Volcano And Shoots Away On Live Internet Cam! March 12, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 12, 2018
Location of sighting: Colima Volcano, Mexico
Source: Live Internet Cam
I have been watching Colima live cam for over 5 years and have recorded over 40 UFOs myself, but this one really takes the cake. Youtube user Tenshi Mex saw and recorded this UFO.
The UFO appears from below the ground through a hidden passage in the lower center of the volcano. The UFO hovers for a little bit as it exits the side of the volcano, then gets its engines or what ever propulsion set up and prepared, making a hard 180 degree turn flying over and past the mouth of the volcano!
This is hard evidence and needs to be acnowledged by the governments of the world. Colima is clearly a UFO hotspot with an alien base 4-5km below its surface. How do I know? I have said that for over 5 years! This UFO came from within the volcano, the evidence is undeniable.
Angelic Winged Sun Seen During Sunset In Florida, Video, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Angelic Winged Sun Seen During Sunset In Florida, Video, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 2018 Location of sighting: Jacksonville, Florida, USA This inspirational look at a pair of angelic wings seen during a sunset in Florida last week was reported by MRMBB333 of Youtube. Science has never been able to fully explain the phenomenon caused by the sun, like rings and wings, but they seem to be messages from angelic beings. There is however a legend of a planet that comes around every 10,000-20,000 years that is a winged planet...this could be a sign that is nearing, for us to prepare for Nibiru. Scott C. Waring Many comments below the video state similar thoughts.
1. Sign of the times. Great pic! 2. The angel wing phenomenon would not be possible unless there was a very large round object behind the sun. 3. Angel wings at Angel point . Wow !! That is Awesome 💜 Nothing is a Coincidence with Our Heavenly Father. He is Amazing. 💜💜 4. Nibiru - The Winged Planet !!!
ANCIENT ALIENS, SUPERHEROES, AND THE DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF
ANCIENT ALIENS, SUPERHEROES, AND THE DECLINE IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF
Co-author: Abby Moore (superhero theorist). Are myths of ancient astronauts filling the voids left behind in the exodus from the myths of religion? Perhaps the popularity of the Ancient Aliens television series parallels the decline of traditional religious belief in 21st-century America. After all, twice as many Americans believe in ancient aliens visiting humans on Earth (35%) than believe in the pure evolution of human life on Earth (19%). Maybe TV shows about ancient aliens and Hollywood movies about superheroes provide the big cosmic narratives that once belonged almost solely to theology. Think about it: ancient aliens and superheroes both have superpowers once reserved for Gods, prophets, and miracle makers.
For the record, I am an existentialist without the angst, influenced by Sartre, Sagan, and others. In a vast and ancient universe of two trillion galaxies and three sextillion stars stretching across 100 billion light years, I am not a cosmic narcissist who believes a Creator has a special plan for me or my species on a speck of a planet in a remote part of one galaxy. Yet, the cosmic vastness gives me hope that— to quote the astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston) in Planet of the Apes (1968)— there has “to be something better than man. Has to be.” As explained in my most read essay in Medium, these better-than-human extratrerrestrials have never visited Earth (though I wish they would). Instead, we are witnessing the electronic birth of a new religion based in the myths and imaginary legends of extraterrestrial reality-TV stars—the “ancient aliens” who star in every episode, but have yet to appear.
21st Century Non-Belief
Much has been written about the decline of religious belief in 21st-century America, as documented in various surveys by the Pew Research Center. Americans who have no religious belief and/or no religious affiliation rose to 22.8% in 2014, up from 2% in the 1950s. While religious writers blamed the decline on the usual suspects (the breakdown of society, the decay of traditional values, and so on), the atheists and humanists tweeted their cheers of hope, apparently overlooking the possibility that a decline in traditional religious belief does not automatically equate to a rise in reason, science, and enlightenment. Given the increasing paranormalism in America, it could be the opposite. Make no mistake, something will fill the void.
According to the United States Census, the current US population is an estimated 327 million people. If indeed 22.8% of Americans are non-believers, that total equals about 75 million people. Age is definitely a factor in non-belief. Over 33% of millennials claim no religious belief, while GenX non-believers are at 23%, Baby Boomers are 17%, and those born before 1945 are 11%.
TABLE 1. Source: Pew Research Center website (2014); accessed November 11, 2017.
According to Pew, about 50% of the unaffiliated are disenchanted with religion or don’t need religion because of their beliefs in “science” and the lack of evidence for a Creator. Another 20% have a beef against organized religion, while 18% are unsure of their beliefs and 10% are inactive.
What’s most interesting to me is not the increase in atheists and agnostics, but the 15.8% who believe “nothing in particular.” 15.8% equals just over 50 million people. Since I doubt all of these people are nihilists, I wonder what they believe about the origins and destiny of the human species.
Are they merely disinterested in religion? Have they outgrown religion, with no need to replace it with any other worldview or cosmology? Do they believe in evolution or that the observable universe is indeed 13.7 billion years old and contains two trillion galaxies? Do they believe in human-caused climate disruption or the Anthropocene? Do they believe we got here via the advice and interventions of ancient aliens? Or do mobile phones, cool threads, hipster restaurants, and Netflix subscriptions provide the needed daily dope—such that they do not need a cosmology for themselves or for our species?
GRAPH 1. Beginning in the late 1960s, we can see the post-Apollo rise of the nones. Source: Gallup and National Public Radio, 2013.
The Apollo Effect
According to Gallup surveys and National Public Radio, the “nones” stayed below 5% until the Apollo program in the late 1960s. The rise of the nones began with the launch of rockets to the moon and continued long after the Apollo program was shut down. For readers who might not know, Apollo 8 orbited the moon in 1968 and took the famed Earthrise image, with Apollo 11 landing on the moon in 1969 and Apollo 17 marking the last journey to the moon in 1972.
GRAPH 2. The post-1990 rise of the internet and rise of nones. Source: MIT Technology Review (“How the Internet is Taking Away America’s Religion,” April 4, 2014) and Allen Downey (“ “Religious Affiliation, Education, and Internet Use,” March 21, 2014).
The Internet Effect
According to computer scientist Allen Downey, the rise of the internet correlates with the rise of non-belief from 1990 to 2010. During that period, the increase in non-believers jumped from 8% to 18% of Americans. In a study of four decades of survey data trends regarding demographics, socioeconomics, religious affiliation, and internet usage, Downey concluded that:
• Religious upbringing increases the chance of religious affiliation as an adult. Decreases in religious upbringing between the 1980s and 2000s account for about 25% of the observed decrease in affiliation.
• College education decreases the chance of religious affiliation. Increases in college graduation between the 1980s and 2000s account for about 5% of the observed decrease in affiliation.
• Internet use decreases the chance of religious affiliation. Increases in Internet use since 1990, from 0 to nearly 80% of the general population, account for about 20% of the observed decrease in affiliation.
Please keep in mind that “correlation” does not equal “causation.” Correlations show patterns that we must connect to other knowledge, evidence, and observations.
What Accounts for the Other 45%?
Given there are 75 million non-believers, what other trends might account for the startling growth in numbers? If we follow Downey’s study and assume upbringing, education, and the internet can account for 55% of the increase, what else accounts for the other 45% (33.7 million people)?
Is it the growth of the scientific outlook? That’s possible, given that only 9% of Americans believed in pure evolution in 1982 and the total has more than doubled to 19% in 2014 (according to Gallup). However, it is likely a good chunk of that 19% is accounted for in the 55% of Downey’s study?
Could the increases be attributed to the various “New Atheist” books published in the past few years? Recent works include: Sam Harris’ The End of Faith (2004), Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism(2004),Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion(2006), Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell (2006), Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great(2007), and Victor Stenger’s God: the Failed Hypothesis(2007). These books might have had marginal influence on creating more non-believers, but my guess is that most of the readers of these books were already atheists. Plus, the sales of these books are dwarfed by the audience size of Ancient Aliens.
As dramatized in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the monolith was the indisputable artifact left on Earth by advanced extraterrestrials. Ancient Aliens hijacked this concept and dumbed it down to the lowest possible level, while filling the intellectual void left by the death of philosophy long divorced from cosmology.
The Rise of Ancient Alien Theory: Hijacking the 2001 and Apollo Narratives
Published at the pinnacle of the space age in 1968, Erich von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods? hijacked the space narrative from Apollo and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001 appeared in 1968, along with Planet of the Apes, Apollo 8 (the first journey to the moon), and Chariots of the Gods?. Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969 as von Daniken’s book was becoming popular around the world. Chariots of the Gods? did what few other works tried (outside of a few episodes of the original Star Trek): it connected human destiny on Earth to the stars we were beginning to explore with the Apollo program. As I wrote in my previous essay about ancient-alien theory:
“The ancient-astronaut theory draws upon two valid cosmological concepts: 1) the reality of the immensity of space and time; and 2) the possibility of advanced civilizations somewhere in the cosmos. Given that the scale of the observable universe is immense and that NASA’s Kepler telescope suggests there may be billions of planets in the Milky Way, there is almost certainly life elsewhere in the cosmos, perhaps including intelligent civilizations.”
“Given that the observable universe is 13.7 billion years old and it took 4 billion years for intelligent life to emerge on Earth, then it is possible the remaining 9 billion years produced civilizations that may have existed for millions or billions of years. If so, they may have developed space travel technologies that allow them to traverse the great distances with relative ease…Such a possibility is one reason why 2001 offers such a compelling vision of human origins and destinies. After all, it would be an epochal moment to find a black monolith somewhere on Earth or the moon, beaming out a radio signal to an alert and curious species.”
Such a possibility is attractive, at least in theory. If ancient aliens have visited our planet, they would have possessed highly advanced sciences and technologies. They would have been viewed as gods, angels, and miracle makers by premodern humans, who would have looked upon the beings and technologies with awe, wonder, and fear.
A 1970s-style Captain Kirk got in on the ancient alien narrative, too.
Since Chariots of the Gods? was a huge best-seller, it was made into a documentary film, Chariots of the Gods (1970). Creator of The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling even narrated a one-hour TV version called In Search of Ancient Astronauts (1973). A copycat version of the film, Mysteries of the Gods, was released in 1976—hosted by none other than William Shatner, a.k.a. Captain Kirk, looking rather hip in a green turtleneck and black velour blazer, while sporting a 1970s-style toupée. With films and TV shows as publicity, Chariots of the Gods? sold over 40 million copies during the 1970s.
Without a doubt, 2001, Planet of the Apes, and von Daniken’s book and films were trying to account for human origins and destiny at the pinnacle of the space age and the Apollo program. When I first encountered Chariots of the Gods? as a boy in the suburbs of Texas in the 1970s, it seemed like a plausible counter-narrative to the self-righteous evangelicals in my school and neighborhood. As explained here, I eventually began to question the validity of the assertions and realized the ancient-alien theory was bogus pseudoscience. To be frank, I was kinda bummed out. But, logic and evidence mattered more to me. Still do.
Of course, there were mainstream media efforts to debunk Chariots of the Gods? These included a 1976 Skeptical Inquirer article, a book entitled The Space Gods Revealed that featureda forward by Carl Sagan, and a BBC-PBS production of Nova (the episode “The Case of the Ancient Astronauts”). Nevertheless, the book’s pseudoscientific ideas continued to circulate around the world in the decades that featured the rise of non-belief in the wake of Apollo. Given that Chariots of the Gods? sold 40 million copies, can we assume it had zero impact on traditional religious beliefs?
In 2009, a two-part episode of Ancient Aliens appeared on the History Channel. So popular was the show that the History Channel programmed the Ancient Alien series, which began in 2010 and is still running every season—134 episodes and counting! As point of comparison for the atheist programs, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s 2014 Cosmos reboot only had 13 episodes and seems to appear on TV far less often than Ancient Aliens. I have seen both series listed in Netflix. Why would Ancient Aliens far outstrip Cosmos if the issue was merely a scientific outlook?
The prime-time episodes of Ancient Aliens draw well over one million viewers, plus there are endless repeats during days and evenings. These audiences are far larger than anything on the Science Channel. Who knows how many millions of viewers have seen the various episodes of Ancient Aliens? Among the 45% and 33 million non-believers unaccounted for in Downey’s study, how many millions might be fans of Ancient Aliens?I don’t know but it is a question worth considering. I bet the total is far from zero. After all, recent surveys show that 35% of Americans believe aliens have visited Earth in the ancient past (see the Chapman surveys below).
Still going strong almost 50 years after Chariots of the Gods?.
The Ancient Aliens series features fanciful storytelling, with many scenes shot at the various remote sites where “evidence” of ancient aliens supposedly exists. Still, it’s all pseudoscientific nonsense—simply because there are no proven artifacts of extraterrestrial origin. There is no academic conspiracy against the ancient-alien theorists as implied in the narration and comments of the talking heads. What’s needed is proven evidence, as cleverly suggested by the monolith in 2001. But we haven’t discovered a monolith or the “chariots.” I wish we had.
In Chariots of the Gods?, Mysteries of the Gods, and Ancient Aliens, virtually all of the so-called evidence and arguments provided by the theorists are myth, superstition, hearsay, anecdotal, or involve an inference or conclusion that is fallacious, implausible, or unknowable. The “evidence” and arguments also contain inaccuracies, mistaken assumptions, unrelated facts, and false similarities. The few remaining pieces of “evidence” — which are a tiny fragment of the absurd claims — are simply mysteries yet to be solved or mysteries that will never be solved. One might say this is also a key point in the cultural emergence of “alternative facts.”
Ancient Aliens: A New Cosmic Religion
But the pseudoscience, endless fallacies, and alternative facts have not prevented the multi-season programming of the television series. Even if the History Channel decided against renewing the series, it would run for decades in syndication and for eternity online, at least until real extraterrestrials arrived or we finishing wrecking the planet.
According to Chapman University, the belief in ancient aliens is growing rapidly: from 20% in 2015 to 35% in 2017.
Chariots of the Gods? and Ancient Aliens have given birth to new cosmic religion narrative, with von Daniken as the great prophet and his followers serving as the scribes—Giorgio Tsoukalos, Graham Hancock, David Childress, and others. Like God and his prophets, the unseen aliens have superpowers and have shaped our past and perhaps our destiny, especially if they return. The ancient alien narrative is like the standard Creator narratives, in that it assumes most everything humans have done follows from pre-ordained grand plans, with mysterious or hidden purposes, effected by an all-powerful force from the sky, a force that has yet to return to prove it exists. Like the Creator narrative, we humans must have been special beneficiaries. After all, the ancient aliens have taken the time to visit our tiny planet, thus caring enough to allegedly build stone structures, design ancient batteries, create cool statuettes, and paint pictographs before cruising to the next galaxy or star system.
Despite (or because of) the pseudoscience, the ancient alien theorists are doing a far better job of connecting humanity to the cosmos than Hollywood filmmakers and contemporary philosophers. The ancient-alien theorists have a fervant audience of followers who feel the theory connects our origins and destinies to the stars. Meanwhile, Hollywood merely sends us into space to wage Star Wars and battle Alien monsters.
All of the above is why I predict the ancient-alien narrative will continue to grow over time, precisely because it is filled with mystical and magical beliefs that mirror religious mythologies. Ancient Aliens makes us feel special—just like Jesus, ETs came to visit us and advise us. After hijacking the 2001narrative, von Daniken and his scribes have built the ancient-astronaut theory into a new religion, a new cosmic narrative filling the void left by contemporary philosophy as it shrinks before a massive and expanding universe. Meanwhile, secular society provides us with mobile phones and IMAX movies, and says we and our tribes are special—so super-special that superheroes will save us in case the aliens don’t make it back in time.
Superheroes: Our Secular Gods
Born of Nietzsche’s 19th century “Ubermensch,” the superhero emerged to counter horiffic “supermen” of the 20th century — the Marxist New Man and the Nazi Aryan man. By the early 20th century, the Soviet Union promised to create the Marxist New Man, the new human supposedly liberated from capitalism and united via communism and “scientific” materialism, supposedly destined to operate on an international scale. Countering the Marxist New Man, Nazi Germany concocted a racist Aryan Man, a mythical superman from the past supposedly destined to rule Europe and much of the world. Of course, both of these visions of a “new man” resulted in genocide and mass slaughter in totalitarian societies, culminating in World War II and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people before, during, and after the war.
In America’s land of a mythic “Democratic Man,” the only “superman” would be Superman, Batman, and subsequent legions of superheroes to save us in comics and movies. Though superheroes are fictional, their stories draw on real world events, such as nuclear weapons and environmental destruction. Superheroes function like secular gods providing stories about humanity’s survival and redemption in the face of apocalypse. In the end credits for The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), we see a giant sculpture of the Avenger superheroes, as if they are a pantheon of gods from Ancient Greece or Rome.
Pantheon of Secular Gods. Above: Statue of The Avengers from The Age of Ultron. Below: Justice League Superheroes
Superhero films have proven especially popular in the 21st century, with a trendline that mirrors the rise of non-belief in America.
Well into the 21st century, the superhero films just keep coming from Hollywood. Be it Superman, Batman, X-Men, Wonder Woman, or The Avengers, it seems almost all superhero films feature superheroes confronting a doomsday scenario for humanity. The superheroes must “save the world” because we can’t do it. Just as ancient-aliens fills the void left by philosophy divorced from science, superheroes fill the void left because industrial society has become divorced from nature, yet it is utterly reliant on the resources we are depleting. Oceans are acidifying, sea levels are rising, and nuclear war is still a possibility, while terrorism, exploitation, and endless tribal warfare plague secular society. Superheroes are needed to save us from ourselves because we know we have no answers, no real solutions for our problems, no leaders or institutions left to trust. It’s the same thing, over and over again, as illustrated in presidential elections.
In the 21st century, Americans expect their presidents to be superheroes battling the doomsday scenarios of the other party—thus we give the presidents ever-expanded political and legal powers, as if we are trying to give them superpowers and make them into superheroes with super solutions. Both major parties do it. Don’t deny it. When the dictator arrives in America, it will be in the guise of a presidential superhero with political superpowers. As Trump has shown, the superhero prez won’t even need to be rational or coherent or even sane. They just need to be superheroes who zap the bad guys. This is what happens when religion and nationalism merge with Hollywood and the 24/7 media spectacle.
In superhero movies and sequels, the superheroes must return to save us, again and again. Ancient-alien theorists claim extraterrestrial visitors shaped our past, present, and perhaps our future when they return. The return of aliens and superheroes echoes the promised return of Jesus and Nietzsche’s cycle of the eternal return, the superhero feedback loop. Ancient aliens and superheroes have superpowers beyond anything humans have, not unlike the Gods and prophets in religions. In the end, superheroes are our secular Gods and fulfill functions formerly reserved for religion, while ancient-alien theory claims to offer a secular narrative that connects us to the stars, yet ends up as another religion—a merger of the space age and new age.
Superhero stories and ancient-alien theory now stand in for contemporary philosophy, divorced from 21st century cosmology and declared “dead” by Stephen Hawking. In the absence of a science-based popular philosophy that offers us hope, meaning, and purpose (beyond tribalism, consumerism, and strip-mining other planets) amid the cosmic vastness, the ancient-alien theory provides hope and meaning by connecting our origins and destiny to a story that begins in the stars—even it is in a universe of alternative facts.
How much of the decline of traditional religious belief can be attributed to the rise of ancient alien theory? I don’t know, but given this analysis, I bet it is far from zero. This possibility is why the traditional religions will try to colonize the ancient-alien theory. Already, one prominent religious leader suggests we baptize extraterrestrials upon meeting them. If the ancient aliens do show up and don’t believe in a Creator, we might well need the superheroes to save us from a religious war in space!
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Barry Vacker is author of the new book, Specter of the Monolith (2017), which explores the meaning of Apollo and films like 2001 and Interstellar, while outlining a new and entirely original space philosophy for the human species. The book is available in Apple’s iBooks, Barnes & Noble (here), and Amazon (here).
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Meet 'Steve,' the Aurora-Like Mystery Scientists Are Beginning to Unravel
Meet 'Steve,' the Aurora-Like Mystery Scientists Are Beginning to Unravel
By Sarah Lewin, Space.com Associate Editor
New work helps to codify the cause and properties of "Steve," an aurora-like phenomenon documented by citizen scientists as it streaked across the sky in western Canada.
As of a new paper's release today (March 14), the phenomenon has been dubbed STEVE, a backronym that matches the name originally given by aurora watchers. (STEVE is short for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.") According to the new work, the distinctive ribbon of purple light with green accents — which can occur at lower latitudes than normal auroras do — gives scientists a glimpse into the interactions of Earth's magnetic field and upper atmosphere.
"It's exciting because this might be a kind of aurora that more people can see than any other kind, because when it shows up, it shows up over more populated areas that are further to the south," Elizabeth MacDonald, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and lead author of the new work, told Space.com. And scientifically, "it's an aspect related to [auroras] that's further south than we ever had recognized … It tells us that the processes creating the aurora are penetrating all the way into the inner magnetosphere, and so that's a new aspect of it." [Amazing Auroras: Photos of Earth's Northern Lights]
The majestic aurora-like phenomenon "Steve," now given the official acronym STEVE, shines with the Milky Way over Childs Lake, Manitoba in Canada.
Credit: Krista Trinder
Researchers first became aware of STEVE after members of a Facebook group called the Alberta Aurora Chasers (which refers to the province in western Canada) began posting photos of unusual purplish-greenish streaks oriented nearly vertically in the sky. Scientist collaborators coordinated with the aurora chasers to combine the dates and times of the phenomenon's appearance with data from the European Space Agency's Swarm satellites, which precisely measure variation in Earth's magnetic field, to work out what conditions caused the phenomenon.
The better-known auroras — also referred to as the northern and southern lights — form when Earth's magnetic field guides charged particles propelled from the sun around the planet and toward the upper atmosphere at its poles. These solar particles hit neutral particles in the upper atmosphere, producing light and color visible in the night sky.
STEVE, on the other hand, seems to form a different way.
"There's an electric field in those regions that points poleward and a magnetic field that points downward, and those two together create this strong drift to the west," MacDonald said. The flow in Earth's ionosphere pulls charged solar particles westward, where they hit neutral particles along the way and heat them up, producing upward-reaching streaks of light moving west.
STEVE ripples over Helena Lake Ranch, BC, Canada in the early evening. The feature was visible for about an hour.
Credit: Andy Witteman —@CNLastro
STEVE is the first visible indicator of that ion drift, which researchers had been investigating via satellite for around 40 years, she added.
Because the phenomenon was occurring outside the usual geographic range for frequent auroras, citizen scientists played a particularly valuable role in understanding STEVE, MacDonald said. It's at the farthest reaches of dedicated scientific cameras, and it appears on wavelengths different from the usual auroras, which those cameras might not be prepared to document. And the improvement in camera technology available to the public means such records are increasingly valuable to scientists' understanding of auroras in general. (Plus, crowdsourcing platforms like Aurorasaurus, which MacDonald founded, help aggregate the observations to help with prediction and analysis.)
Scientists understand a lot about auroras, but not everything — "so there's the discovery aspect," MacDonald said. "And there's the less-exciting aspect of the citizen science observations," which are equally scientifically valuable. "All these observations in aggregate help us to build better models of aurorae," she added. "That's useful for people who want to see it, and it's also useful for people who are concerned about the effects of space weather and currents in the upper atmosphere on communication and things like that."
STEVE ripples across Lake Minnewanka in Alberta, Canada.
Credit: Paulo Fedozzi
It's hard to get an overall view of auroras with the current slate of satellites, MacDonald said, which either can't see an entire hemisphere or don't observe each spot often enough as they orbit — once every 90 minutes — to track how auroras evolve in the short term. People on the ground can provide a more nuanced view.
"Through these kinds of projects, we can get more people than we would have thought — than they would have thought — who actually have captured a scientifically valuable observation," she said. "And it's not scary; it's just STEVE."
The new work was detailed today (March 14) in the journal Science Advances.
Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains.
HEAD IN THE CLOUDS The rover Opportunity snapped this picture of wispy clouds drifting through the Martian sky in 2006. New findings suggest the clouds might have condensed around particles of dust from comets.
JPL-NASA, CORNELL UNIV.
The seeds for Martian clouds may come from the dusty tails of comets.
Charged particles, or ions, of magnesium from the cosmic dust can trigger the formation of tiny ice crystals that help form clouds, a new analysis of Mars’ atmosphere suggests.
For more than a decade, rovers and orbiters have captured images of Martian skies with wispy clouds made of carbon dioxide ice. But “it hasn’t been easy to explain where they come from,” says chemist John Plane of the University of Leeds in England. The cloud-bearing layer of the atmosphere is between –120° and –140° Celsius — too warm for carbon dioxide clouds to form on their own, which can happen at about –220° C.
Then in 2017, NASA’s MAVEN orbiter detected a layer of magnesium ions hovering about 90 kilometers above the Martian surface (SN: 4/29/17, p. 20). Scientists think the magnesium, and possibly other metals not yet detected, comes from cosmic dust left by passing comets. The dust vaporizes as it hits the atmosphere, leaving a sprinkling of metals suspended in the air. Earth has a similar layer of atmospheric metals, but none had been observed elsewhere in the solar system before.
According to the new calculations, the bits of magnesium clump with carbon dioxide gas — which makes up about 95 percent of Mars’ atmosphere — to produce magnesium carbonate molecules. These larger, charged molecules could attract the atmosphere’s sparse water, creating what Plane calls “dirty” ice crystals.
At the temperatures seen in Mars’ cloud layer, pure carbon dioxide ice crystals are too small to gather clouds around them. But clouds could form around dirty ice at temperatures as high as –123° C, Plane and colleagues report online March 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
FOLLOW THE ICE A wall of ice in the shadows of Ceres’ Juling crater, shown here in an image taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, grew by about 50 percent over the course of six months.
JPL-CALTECH/NASA, UCLA, MPS, DLR, IDA
Ceres may be regularly coughing up briny water or slush onto its surface.
The discovery of waterlogged minerals and a growing ice wall suggests that the dwarf planet could harbor underground liquid water or slushy brine, which has escaped through cracks and craters in the recent past and may still be seeping out today. The findings, reported in two papers published online March 14 in Science Advances, add to a growing realization that Ceres is geologically active — and may point to new signs of the dwarf planet’s potential to host the ingredients for life.
“We thought of Ceres as a dead body like our moon,” says Andrea Raponi, a coauthor of both studies and a planetary scientist at the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology in Rome. The growing body of evidence “means that Ceres is geologically alive, active, in our days.”
Since 2015, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has orbited Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The mission has previously revealed Ceres has water ice in shadowed regions of its craters and a few meters below the surface (SN: 1/21/17, p. 8). The dwarf planet also has what look like cryovolcanoes, which spew slushy water instead of magma.
Now, scientists have used data from Dawn to make the first global map of surface carbonate minerals, which form in the presence of liquid water. In one of the new papers, the team reports finding hydrated sodium carbonate — versions of the minerals that still have water molecules attached.
Observations of Ceres have detected recent variations in its surface, revealing that the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system is a dynamic body that continues to evolve and change. "This is the first direct detection of change on the surface of Ceres," said Andrea Raponi of the Institute of Astrophysics and Planetary Science in Rome.
Small patches
Data taken by the Dawn spacecraft show that Ceres’ surface is covered in carbonate minerals that formed with water. Blue and magenta show widespread magnesium and calcium carbonates, while green and red show hydrated sodium carbonates. The hydrated carbonates are found in craters and on mounds, suggesting briny water or slush is reaching the surface in those zones.
F.G. CARROZZO ET AL/SCIENCE ADVANCES 2018
Because the dwarf planet has no atmosphere, that water can’t hang around more than a few million years, says study coauthor Filippo Giacomo Carrozzo, also a planetary scientist at the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology in Rome. With no protective shield, cosmic radiation breaks the water’s bonds to other molecules, and the water evaporates relatively quickly into space. The presence of so much hydrated sodium carbonate on the surface means something must be replenishing it.
The hydrated sodium carbonates are particularly concentrated near craters and domes, suggesting that briny water or slush wells up from the subsurface in an ice volcano. Or impact craters may excavate rock and soil, exposing the brine, the researchers say.
Both ideas are “viable mechanisms,” says Lucy McFadden of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is a member of the Dawn team but was not involved in the new papers. “It’s all pretty exciting stuff.”
In the second study, Raponi, Carrozzo and colleagues report that a wall of water ice in a crater called Juling grew from about 3.6 square kilometers to 5.5 square kilometers from April to October 2016. “We see, under our eyes, a change in the cover of water ice in a period of six months,” Raponi says. The change took place as the dwarf planet’s 4.6-year orbit was taking Ceres closer to the sun, the equivalent of moving from winter to spring, she says.
Some of the ice could have been buried beneath dirt, which sloughed off as the ice beneath it warmed and revealed fresh ice as the seasons changed, the team argues. Or freshwater or brine could have welled up from below and froze in the shadowed crater wall. Features on the crater floor seem to support this upwelling idea, Raponi says.
If water is upwelling from below, it’s hard to explain how it stays fluid beneath the surface, Raponi admits. Icy moons with subsurface oceans, like Enceladus and Europa, get a constant influx of heat from the gravity of the giant planets they orbit, Saturn and Jupiter. But Ceres has no such heat source.
But if Ceres does have a stable layer of subsurface liquid, that could increase its potential to be habitable, Raponi says. Previous studies have found organic molecules on Ceres’ surface, too (SN: 3/18/17, p. 8). “If we have all the ingredients of life in a geologically active body, that can be very interesting,” Raponi says.
Here Are 3 Of The Best Recorded UFO Sightings Witnessed In Ancient Times
Here Are 3 Of The Best Recorded UFO Sightings Witnessed In Ancient Times
“In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day […] among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange Fiery Disk was coming in the sky. It had no head…It was after the evening meal when the Disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south…”
Despite the fact that millions of people around the globe are convinced that mankind has been visited and is being visited by beings not from Earth, the evidence remains unconvincing for skeptics.
Even though we can find hundreds of mysterious videos filmed both by ordinary people and by astronauts and military personnel, it is a common belief that ‘contact’ with alien life has never been made.
If we take a look at history, we will find a number of interesting documents which ‘prove’ that ancient cultures like the Egyptians, or people living in Europe some 500 years ago, witnessed something in the sky which they could not properly explain.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
They saw something in the heavens that was strange, but they knew it wasn’t weather related and thought of the mysterious phenomenon as a sign of the Gods.
One of the most discussed ancient documents that suggest the ancient Egyptians witnessed UFOs in the distant past is the so-called Tulli Papyrus.
This document offers the earliest citation of flying saucers on the planet.
The Tulli “papyrus” is a translation of a modern transcription of an ancient Egyptian document.
As noted in this ancient text, during the rule of Pharaoh Thutmose III a mass UFO sighting occurred over Egypt. The event was recorded in history as a day of great importance, a day that something unexplainable occurred.
The translation of the text, according to R. Cedric Leonard:
“In the year 22, of the third month of winter, sixth hour of the day […] among the scribes of the House of Life it was found that a strange Fiery Disk was coming in the sky. It had no head. The breath of its mouth emitted a foul odor. Its body was one rod in length and one rod in width. It had no voice…
…It was after the evening meal when the Disks ascended even higher in the sky to the south. Fish and other volatiles rained down from the sky: a marvel never before known since the foundation of the country.”
In addition to this document, many other accounts of strange ‘ships’ in the sky have been recorded throughout the years.
In 1561, the inhabitants of Nuremberg (modern-day German) witnessed a battle in the sky.
This event is considered as one of the best recorded UFO sightings in the history of man.
The day was April 14th, 1561, people left their homes to go about their everyday activities, but when they looked towards the sky, they saw something terrifying and unexplainable, as dozens of strange crafts were flying above the city.
The local newspaper from Nuremberg gave the following description of the events over the city:
“In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates, and in the country – by many men and women. At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. Likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes. These all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun. Besides, the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour. And when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth ‘as if they all burned’ and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke. After all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west. Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows. Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs on the heaven, which are sent to us by the almighty God, to bring us to repentance, we still are, unfortunately, so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God. Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness. After all, the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that He may avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may temporarily here and perpetually there, live as his children. For it, may God grant us his help, Amen. By Hanns Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg”.
(Source: Colman S. Von Kevicsky, “The Ufo Sighting Over Nuremberg in 1561” Official Ufo January 1976, pp. 36-8, 68. The translation is by Ilse Von Jacobi.)
But there’s more.
In 1665, hundreds of people witnessed another battle of ships in the sky, above the sky of Barhöfft.
Shortly after the battle had ended, the inhabitants of Barhöfft witnessed a dark, disk-shaped object overflying the area where the battle had taken place.
The event:
“After a while out of the sky came a flat round form, like a plate, looking like the big hat of a man… Its color was that of the darkening moon, and it hovered right over the Church of St. Nicolai. There it remained stationary until the evening. The fishermen, worried to death, didn’t want to look further at the spectacle and buried their faces in their hands. On the following days, they fell sick with trembling all over and pain in head and limbs. Many scholarly people thought a lot about that,”
wrote Erasmus Francisci in “Der wunder-reiche Ueberzug unserer Nider-Welt/Oder Erd-umgebende” in 1689.
The Star Wars saga is peppered with adorable space robots. NASA engineer W. Kris Verdeyen thinks that future space bots will have the capabilities of droids like BB-8, with humanoid frames like C-3PO.
Astronauts need a lot of help from robots. Whether it’s the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) or future recruits on missions exploring the depths of the Solar System, robots help us to complete tasks beyond our human capabilities. But what type of robots are best suited for these cosmic jobs? One NASA engineer thinks that we should turn to Star Wars for inspiration.
In the popular saga, Astromechs are repair droids that act as autonomous mechanics aboard ships. They are also capable of fighting, piloting spacecraft, and just about everything else. You might recognize astromechs like BB-8 or R2-D2. At NASA, these types of robots are called caretaker robots. In Science Robotics, NASA engineer W. Kris Verdeyen recently argued that the ideal robot for missions in space would have the capabilities of an astromech (or caretaker robot), but with a less problematic body.
Even on a film set, Verdeyen observed, rolling droids like BB-8 are not ideal for difficult, desert terrain. NASA has tested out humanoid robots like Robonaut and Robonaut 2, which flew to the ISS, but so far they have not been able to compete with the enormous variety of functions of astromechs. Still, because of its humanoid frame, “Robonaut, either the original or Robonaut 2, has demonstrated use of drills, torque wrenches, surgical equipment, air-quality testers—an impressive array of hand tools that may be necessary for an on-orbit repair,” Verdeyen wrote. He suggests that the ideal robot for such missions would have the capabilities of an astromech, or caretaker robot, but with a humanoid frame.
One of the primary functions that make astromechs so useful is their “creativity” — something that has been sorely lacking in NASA’s humanoid robots. They can autonomously solve problems that they haven’t been preprogrammed to handle. When in space, things never go exactly as planned, and an inability to respond quickly will threaten the safety of a mission. The ideal robot would be able to adapt to unexpected situations.
Verdeyen says that, to try to combine a physically capable robot with these qualities, NASA has been exploring what it calls “embedded intelligence.” They want to take robots like Robonaut 2 and equip them with artificial intelligence (AI) and a hefty database of basic knowledge to kickstart them.
It is unclear whether or not these ideal space robots would be as charismatic as their on-screen counterparts, but it’s possible they will be just as handy. “Star Wars got a lot of the functions of space robots right. NASA’s space robots will need to be able to repair spacecraft semiautonomously, just like R2D2 and BB-8,” Verdeyen said. “They will need to solve problems in and store knowledge about their spacecraft, just like R2D2 and BB-8. But, at least for the time being, they will look a lot more like C3PO and K-2SO.”
Stephen Hawking was a brilliant astrophysicist who inspired and awed. He pushed our understanding of, curiosity about, and excitement for the universe around us. He made us laugh. He made us curious. He made us imagine.
He also, at times, made us afraid.
Hawking, who died this morning at the age of 76 after 52 years of living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease), will leave behind a deeply important legacy. But his paranoia about the future of humanity, especially in his later years, may prove to be one of the most lasting (and pertinent) aspects of that legacy.
These are a few of his most dire predictions:
1. AI Takeover
“The genie is out of the bottle. We need to move forward on artificial intelligence development but we also need to be mindful of its very real dangers,” Hawking said last year in a Q&A with WIRED. “I fear that AI may replace humans altogether. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that replicates itself. This will be a new form of life that will outperform humans.”
As AI permeates more of our daily lives, Hawking isn’t the only one to fear a robot takeover.
But there are other threats.
2. Self-Destruction
“Our earth is becoming too small for us, global population is increasing at an alarming rate and we are in danger of self-destructing… I would not be optimistic about the long-term outlook for our species.”
Hawking said this in 2016 at an event at Cambridge University, attesting his pessimism in part to the recent referendum for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union. In a 2017 documentary, he said humanity has just a century left on Earth, down from the 1,000 years he predicted the year before.
That’s in part because of climate change and environmental destruction that, he feared, may make the Earth uninhabitable. Since he became president, Donald Trump had become a favorite target of Hawking’s:
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action [pulling out of the Paris Agreement] could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid,” Hawking told BBC News.
“Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it’s one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”
Fortunately, though, he sees a solution.
3. Planetary Colonization
“If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before,” Hawking said at a festival in Norway last year.
“We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems,” he continued. “Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth.”
“I hope it would unite competitive nations in a single goal, to face the common challenge for us all… A new and ambitious space program would excite [young people], and stimulate interest in other areas, such as astrophysics and cosmology.”
He laid out a fairly comprehensive series of benchmarks: nations should send astronauts to the Moon by 2020 (and set up a lunar base in the next 30 years). And we should get to Mars y 2025.
Mysterious Beams of Light appear in the Sky over Ohio
Mysterious Beams of Light appear in the Sky over Ohio
While driving on March 13th, 2018 in Ohio, Justin saw lights coming from the upper right side of the screen.
At first Justin thought it was a reflection but realized it wasn’t because the light was being blocked by the trees.
Indeed it is not a reflection and again an orange glow in the sky that surrounds the beams of light before the mysterious phenomenon disappears and the night sky turns to normal again.
The strange sky phenomenon starts at the 0.48 mark in the video.
Galactic clockwork: Astronomers find all galaxies rotate once every billion years
Galactic clockwork: Astronomers find all galaxies rotate once every billion years
Credit: Pexels.
Our planet spins around its own axis, with each completed cycle corresponding to the length of a day. The Earth also orbits the Sun, coming full circle every ~365 days, which we call a year. But now, researchers have found that not only do all galaxies spin around their core like cosmic clocks, they also all take just as long to complete a full revolution, regardless of their size. That’s about one billion years or so. Can we call it a galacton? What about a galaxium? I want more ideas in the comments.
Like clockwork
“It’s not Swiss watch precision,” said Professor Gerhardt Meurer from the UWA node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
“But regardless of whether a galaxy is very big or very small, if you could sit on the extreme edge of its disk as it spins, it would take you about a billion years to go all the way round.”
The researchers investigated numerous galaxies of all shapes, sizes, and rotational velocity, ranging from small dwarf irregulars to massive spirals
Meurer and colleagues found there were some persistent regularities such as that all galaxies of the same size also have the same average density of stars. “You won’t find a dense galaxy rotating quickly, while another with the same size but lower density is rotating more slowly,” Meurer said.
The astronomers thought they would find dispersed populations of young stars and gas at the edges of galactic disks. But instead, the models revealed that older stars exit through the outer edge of galaxies, too. This finding is of significant practical importance since it tells scientists where a galaxy ends, allowing them to limit observations and not waste time and computer processing power.
When the next generation of radio telescopes comes online, such as the massive Square Kilometre Array (SKA), these will generate a flood of new data, so knowing how to accurately identify a galaxy’s edge can save astronomers a lot of headaches.
By far, the most striking finding was that, no matter how big they are, all galaxies rotate once every billion years.
“So because of this work, we now know that galaxies rotate once every billion years, with a sharp edge that’s populated with a mixture of interstellar gas, with both old and young stars,” Professor Meurer said.
“When the SKA comes online in the next decade,” Meurer said, “we’ll need as much help as we can get to characterize the billions of galaxies these telescopes will soon make available to us.”
Ancient carved pipes of the mysterious ‘Mount Builders’,
Credit: Unknown
The Book of Enoch and Extraterrestrial Watchers
The controversy surrounding the Old Testament “Book of Enoch” will always be with us as more theologies reject this unique chronicle than accept it as part of the cannon of the Bible. This is understandable because when interpreted literally, it makes little sense.
R.H. Charles translated the ancient text in 1912. In 1948 more pieces of this ancient puzzle came together with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Soon after, fragments of the Greek text were also discovered.
True Events
It is my belief that Enoch was writing about true events and real experiences using the language and belief system of his ancient times to describe what he perceived as supernatural spiritual beings at war with one another.
In truth, I believe Enoch really was witnessing two groups of space travelers from a civilization eons ahead of man’s technologically, who were fighting over whether such an advanced civilization had the right to interfere, intermarry and conquer a primitive species.
In my opinion it is only when we view the so-called “Watchers” or “angels” Enoch chronicles in this context that this prophet’s epic account makes any sense at all.
Shipwrecked or Observation Post
I am going to give you my interpretation of Enoch’s writings first, with his text immediately following.
My interpretation of Chapter six and seven of the Book of Enoch is as follows:
An expedition of extraterrestrials either crashed or was shipped down to earth to observe mankind and watch its progress — thus the term “Watchers.” This is no different than what some of our scientists do in the wild with animals or secluded Amazon tribes. They observe, tag and try to learn as much as they can about their subjects without destroying their culture or interfering with their affairs. Again, I am speaking of today and not during the period of past European colonialism.
Gap in Time
Whether these visitors had crashed or had been transported to the ancient Middle East is not known. But according to Enoch’s account, the 200 of them, who had become residents of the area, started to find earth women quite attractive. My best guess is that a long period of time has passed between when this crew had been dropped off or crashed on earth; therefore, as a group they decided it was time to procreate with the natives because they weren’t sure if their fleet would ever be returning for them.
Or this action could have been purely a matter of survival. Perhaps their women had died, or perhaps they were dwindling in numbers and believed it was necessary to take action to preserve themselves. Or, perhaps they were just horny.
Interesting, Enoch writes that their leader Semjâzâ openly expressed great concern about such a move; in fact, he told his fellow extraterrestrials that he would be held responsible and pay a heavy price for allowing such sexual copulation.
At this, his crew assured the leader that they had his back, which appeared to ease Semjâzâ reservations enough to give them the final O.K. — and even join in.
Broke the Prime Directive
Using a Star Trek term, it was soon after that the 200 visitors descended Mount Hermon, a place with so-called angels and God often communicated with the prophets, and took themselves human wives.
In the next passage, Enoch begins to outline the consequences of these extraterrestrials mating with local women. Immediately, the visitors began to teach their wives advanced chemistry and later they would teach their offspring the advantages of technology as applied to warfare with other humans.
Instantly, these extraterrestrials had sowed the seeds for the disaster that followed.
Here Are 10 Of The Most Remarkable Ancient Temples Ever Built On Earth
Here Are 10 Of The Most Remarkable Ancient Temples Ever Built On Earth
Thousands of years ago, ancient cultures around the globe erected some of the most amazing structures on the surface of the planet.
Using incredible knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, engineering, and architecture, ancient people created truly wonderous monuments to stand the test of time.
Some of these structures are engulfed in mystery, as they defy everything we have been taught about ancient cultures.
From laser-like cuts to supermassive blocks of stone weighing up to one hundred tons, these incredible ancient structures prove that our ancestors were far more advanced than what we are crediting them for.
Join me on this journey while I explore ten of the most remarkable temples ever built on Earth.
The Konark Sun Temple.
This ancient temple located in Orissa, India was built by King Narasimhadeva I of Eastern Ganga Dynasty in 1255 CE.
I find this temple beyond stunning as it features a number of intricate design details that will make your jaw drop.
The temple itself was shaped like a gigantic chariot, but its breathtaking design elements are the smaller ones, like the elaborately carved stone wheels, pillars, and walls. A major part of the structure is now in ruins.
Another temple, perhaps equally stunning is the so-called Brihadeeswarar Temple dedicated to Lord Shiva and commissioned by Raja Raja Chola I. The temple was completed in 1010 CE. This temple is located in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. One of its most prominent features is the massive 40-meter-high Vimana—one of the largest in the world. The entire temple was built out of granite, and scholars have calculated that the ancients used more than 130,000 tons in its construction.
The Prambanan temple compound, home to 240 rocket-like structures. This ancient temple compound is believed to have been erected during the 9th century under the Sanjaya dynasty of the first Kingdom of Mataram in the Central Java region. Prambanan is considered the most significant Hindu temple site in Indonesia, and one of the biggest in Southeast Asia. The stunning rocket-like structures are characterized by its tall and pointed architecture style, which, according to historians, are typical of Hindu architecture and by a towering 47-meter-high central building inside a large complex of individual temples.
One of my favorite ancient temples is located in Ellora, Maharashtra, India. This ancient wonder of the world is considered the largest rock-cut temple on the surface of the planet.
The Kailasanatha temple(Cave 16) is one of the 34 cave temples and monasteries are known collectively as the Ellora Caves. Its construction is generally attributed to the 8th-century Rashtrakuta king Krishna I in 756-773 CE.
From India, we travel to Egypt. There, in the land of the Pharaohs, we come across the Temple of Dendera, an ancient monument built to honor the Goddess Hathor.
Curiously, this temple, located a mere 2.5 km southeast of Dendera, is one of the best preserved Egyptian complexes, especially its central temple, thanks to which it remained buried by sand and mud until it was unearthed by Auguste Mariette in the middle of the 19th century.
The Temple of Dendera features a mysterious relief that some authors claim depicts a massive lightbulb used by the ancients Egyptians, suggesting that thousands of years ago, the ancient Egyptians had access to advanced technologies like electricity.
Egypt has a number of ancient temples that are worth mentioning, and I can’t exclude Khafre’s Valley Temple from this article.
This ancient temple is one of the most curious temples in Egypt mostly because of the enigmatic ‘bent’ stones that lie inside the temple. It features supermassive blocks of stones, some exceeding 150 tons in weight, and design elements that eerily resemble elements found halfway around the world, in Peru.
The Giant Pyramid-temple of Borobudur. This magnificent ancient structure is considered the largest Pyramid-shaped Buddhist monument in the world, but it is also one of the most intricately designed structures on the surface of the planet. mainstream scholars have no idea who erected it, what its original purpose was, nor how on earth it was built.
A few people are aware of the fact that hidden deep inside the desert region in Peru, more than 5,000 years ago, an ancient civilization erected magnificent temples and pyramids.
An Aerial view of Caral. Image Credit: Turandino
The Pyramids and temples of Peru are believed to predate the Pyramids of the Giza plateau by at least 500 years and were erected by the Caral people.
From Peru me journey to the Temple of the Sun or (Coricancha, Koricancha, Qoricancha or Qorikancha), the main Inca Sanctuary. Its internal walls, embedded and molded with millimetric precision, surprise even more when it is known that during the Inca Empire they were not ‘naked’, but that all the walls of the temple, according to Garcilaso de la Vega who wrote about Coricancha in the late sixteenth century, “were covered from top to bottom with massive gold planks.”
Image Credit: Shutterstock
The Temple of the Sun (Coricancha) is part of a beautiful complex composed of several temples.
And last but not least, we travel to Cambodia.
There, in the city of Angkor Thom lie the ruins of the temple complex of 200-smiling-faces: The BayonTemple.
Built at the end of the 12thcentury, it was completed during the reign of JayavarmanVII. It was created in Buddhiststyle. The temple is oriented towards the east, and so its buildings are set back to the west inside enclosures elongated along the east-west axis. It is best known for its 54 towers and more than two hundred Buddha faces which give off a sensation as if they were staring at you with a relaxed, calm, and beatific look.
Here Are NASA’s Unreleased Apollo Mission Images They Don’t Want You To See
Here Are NASA’s Unreleased Apollo Mission Images They Don’t Want You To See
The idea that NASA has encountered Alien life during the Apollo missions has aroused the curiosity of thousands of experts in the field for decades.
Ever since NASA successfully landed on the moon, people have wondered whether or not the astronauts on the lunar surface—and during their trip to the moon—witnessed things they couldn’t rationally explain.
In other words; Alien spaceships and structures on the moon’s surface.
These questions were quickly turned into a conspiracy theory, and people who argue that the Apollo astronauts witnessed inexplicable things during their trip to the moon were called out as conspiracy nuts.
To date, the United States is the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the surface of Moon, with the last Apollo mission departing the lunar surface in December 1972.
Apollo 11 Moon Landing.
Image credit: NASA
For nearly half a century—46 years to be precise—space agencies around the globe have avoided going to the moon.
But why?
Was it due to extremely high costs? Risks? Or is it that the moon is simply not an interesting place?
The truth is that today, 46 years after the last successful moon landing we have much better technology than we had 46 years ago.
Money isn’t an issue, for we always find money for things we want and need.
The moon is perhaps one of the most interesting places in the solar system, and numerous experts have claimed it is imperative for humans to establish a colony on the lunar surface.
So, what’s keeping us from landing on the moon?
A man called Bob Dean may answer the above question.
Mr. Dean is retired US Army Command Sergeant Major who served for 28 years.
He has given a number of interesting lectures, providing a wealth of information about not only the moon landings, Apollo missions, but also corroborating what numerous whistleblowers have said in the past.
During the Barcelona Exopolitics Summit, on July 25, 2009, Mr. Dean released a set of amazing images. He also explained the Apollo missions, and what astronauts encountered unlike anyone before him.
During the summit, Mr. Dean released to the public a set of fascinating images supposedly captured by astronauts of the Apollo 12 mission, including an image showing mysterious spacecraft several hundred feet in diameter.
During the lecture, Mr. Dean recounts how on the morning of the 2nd of February 1961, World War III almost began, and a fleet of unidentified flying objects were to blame:
“It appears that on the morning of the 2nd of February 1961, World War III almost started. It was involved in the flyover of large numbers of circular metallic craft, flying in formation, very obviously under intelligent control,” said Mr. Dean during the lecture.
Mr. Dean continued: “They would fly out of the Soviet sector in the Warsaw Pact toward the U.S. in formation at a high speed and at a very high altitude. They would turn north over the English Channel over the southern coast of England and then they would disappear off of NATO radar over the Norwegian Sea.”
“The Soviets went on red alert. The NATO forces went on red alert. Everybody was, you know … fingers on their triggers, thumbs poised above those red buttons. And World War III was just moments away,” explained Mr. Dean. “Within 20 minutes, it was all over. The objects flew, turned north and disappeared off of radar.”
Soon after the mysterious sighting that nearly triggered WWIII, a study of the occurred took place.
Experts concluded how “…planet Earth and the human race had been under some kind of survey or observation going on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. They concluded, in 1964, that there were at least four different groups coming here, observing us, surveying us, analyzing us, closely watching us, what we were up to, what we were doing. They concluded that it did not appear to be a military threat involved, because their repeated demonstrations of incredibly advanced technology demonstrated to us that, if they had been hostile or malevolent, there was absolutely nothing we could do. If they were evil in their intent and they were hostile toward us, it would have been over a long time ago.”
“…the conclusion was there were four different groups involved,” explained Mr. Dean.
The next image, says Mr. Dean, shows a mysterious disc-shaped object with several hundred feet in diameter. It was snapped while astronauts made their way to the surface of the moon.
The next two images were taken by Apollo Astronauts when they were overflying the so-called Lansberg crater. According to Mr. Dean; “The astronauts in orbit above the Moon were particularly fascinated by the Lansberg crater. They had been given a special designation to take pictures of Lansberg, because the crater, which they named as the Lansberg, had things going on that were very anomalous. There was construction going on. There were gigantic facilities in the crater up there. So they were specifically delegated and assigned to photograph Lansberg to see if they could figure out what the hell was going on down there. While they were looking at Lansberg, this object happened to express interest in them and flew by. Now this line is an artificial line that was drawn to show you the … it gave the direction that this object was going. This is a good-size object flying past the Apollo Lander.”
Are these mysterious spots alien structures on the lunar surface?
Mr. Dean continued showing evidence gathered by astronauts from the Apollo 13 mission. The below image, says Mr. Dean, where taken as Apollo 13 astronauts were traveling to the moon when a number of things began happening. Some strange objects were appearing outside the windows of the spacecraft, so the Apollo 13 Astronauts grabbed their Hasselblad cameras and started taking pictures of what they had seen.
This photograph below shows three different objects.
Another image of the Apollo 13 ‘UFO’ encounter, as noted by Mr. Dean.
Read the entire transcript and view more images here.
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Hoe hij ontdekte dat hij ziek was en hoe hij zijn stem verloor: 10 dingen die je nog niet wist over Stephen Hawking
Hoe hij ontdekte dat hij ziek was en hoe hij zijn stem verloor: 10 dingen die je nog niet wist over Stephen Hawking
FOTO: PHOTO NEWS
De grootste natuurkundige van deze tijd, de bekendste wetenschapper ter wereld, een legende, een briljant fysicus,... De op 14 maart overleden Stephen Hawking kreeg veel bejubelende stempels opgekleefd. Maar hij was niet alleen dat. Hij was bijvoorbeeld ook een middelmatige scholier of auteur van kinderboeken. En het had niet veel gescheeld of de wereld had al in 1985 afscheid moeten nemen van Hawking. Dat en een aantal andere zaken die je wellicht nog niet wist over Hawking zetten we in onderstaand lijstje op een rijtje.
Stephen Hawking was niet alleen wereldberoemd wetenschapper, maar ook een van de bekendste ALS-patiënten. Dat hij die ziekte had, ontdekte hij toen hij 21 was. De eerste signalen daarvoor merkte hij op toen hij met zijn moeder ging schaatsen. Hij kwam toen ten val, maar het lukte hem nauwelijks om weer rechtop te geraken. Hij werd ook steeds onhandiger en kon steeds moeilijker praten. Hawking besefte dat er iets mis was. Begin 1963 werd de diagnose gesteld: de ongeneeslijke ziekte ALS. Dokters gaven hem nog maar 2 jaar te leven. Uiteindelijk werden het er nog 55.
FOTO: PHOTO NEWS
2. BIJNA GESTORVEN IN 1985.
Bijna was Hawking zo’n 33 jaar geleden al gestorven, nadat hij een longontsteking opliep tijdens een congres in Genève. De situatie was zo ernstig dat hij met machines in leven moest gehouden worden. Zijn stembanden werden tijdens een noodzakelijke operatie ook doorgesneden, waardoor hij zijn stem kwijtraakte. De echtgenote van Hawking, Jane, werd voor de keuze gesteld om de machines die hem in leven hielden, uit te zetten. De dokters gaven Stephen namelijk geen kans meer op overleven. Jane weigerde echter de machines te laten uitzetten, en uiteindelijk overleefde Stephen toch.
3. BRIT MET AMERIKAANSE STEM.
Hawking’s ziekte heeft ertoe geleid dat hij niet goed meer kon praten. Na een noodzakelijke operatie werden zijn stembanden ook doorgesneden en verloor hij zijn stem. De man kon al jaren niet meer praten en communiceerde daarom via een stemcomputer. Opvallend: hoewel Hawking Brits is, spreekt de stemcomputer met een Amerikaans accent. Hawking wilde toch dié stemcomputer behouden “omdat hij geen enkele stem had die hij beter vond en omdat hij zichzelf intussen met die stem geïdentificeerd had.”
Zijn stem kan trouwens ook gehoord worden in de nummers Keep Talking en Talkin’ Hawking van Pink Floyd en in de intro van het album Party Animals van Turbonegro0
FOTO: PHOTO NEWS
4. MIDDELMATIGE STUDENT.
Hawking was een genie, maar in zijn eerste schooljaren was hij toch vooral een middelmatige student. Meer nog: hij eindigde vaak als laatste in de klas wanneer de schoolrapporten werden uitgedeeld. Dat hij slechte punten had ,was echter niet omdat hij niet intelligent zou geweest zijn. Wel was de jonge Hawking eerder lui. Ook in de middelbare school haalde Hawking daardoor geen uitmuntende punten. Hij was niet meer de slechtste, maar scoorde ook niet meer dan middelmatig.
Hawking studeerde eerst aan de Oxford-universiteit. Volgens biograaf Kristine Larsen was hij ongelukkig tijdens zijn eerste jaar aan de universiteit. Hij raakte uit die ongelukkige periode door zich aan te sluiten bij het roeiteam. Hawking had toen nog niet de diagnose van ALS gekregen. Maar een echte sportieve rol had hij niet in het team. Hij zat op de positie waarin de stuur- en slagfrequentie bepaald werd. Dat maakte hem populair, vooral omdat dit een cruciale positie is.
Hawking wordt beschouwd als de grootste natuurkundige van deze tijd. Hij heeft ook een iconische status als meest herkenbare wetenschapper van onze tijd. Dat werd nog versterkt doordat hij in meerdere programma’s kwam opdraven. Zo had hij een rol in Star Trek of The Big Bang Theory, net als in The Simpsons. En een deel van zijn leven werd ook verfilmd: een paar jaar geleden kwam The Theory of Everything in de zalen. Eddie Redmayne vertolkte toen de rol van Hawking en kreeg daar een Oscar voor.
FOTO: PHOTO NEWS
7. NIET ALLEEN WETENSCHAP, OOK KINDERBOEKEN.
‘A Brief History of Time’ is een van de bekendste werken van Stephen Hawking. Het werd een wereldwijde bestseller. Onder andere dankzij dit boek verwierf Hawking bekendheid bij het grote publiek. Er zijn wereldwijd tientallen miljoenen exemplaren van dit boek verkocht, het werd in meerdere talen vertaald. Maar Hawking schreef niet alleen puur wetenschappelijke werken. Hij schreef ook essays en gaf lezingen over bijvoorbeeld politiek, intelligente wapens, robots, het beleid van Amerikaans president Trump, over de klimaatverandering of over ‘de vernietiging van onze planeet’.
FOTO: AP
En Hawking is ook auteur van een kinderboek. In 2007 maakte hij samen met zijn dochter Lucy het boek ‘George’s Secret Key to the Universe’. Het boek was vooral bedoeld om zwaar wetenschappelijke thema’s zoals theorieën rond het heelal en zwarte gaten op een begrijpbare manier uit te leggen aan kinderen. Het boek kreeg, als onderdeel van een trilogie, ook nog een vervolg.
8. BELANGRIJKSTE WETENSCHAPPER.
Hawking is, letterlijk en figuurlijk, onlosmakelijk verbonden met zijn elektrische rolstoel. Dat bekend beeld van de man overschaduwde soms zijn wetenschappelijk nalatenschap. Nochtans is Hawking misschien wel de belangrijkste wetenschapper van de voorbije decennia. Hij vergrootte ons begrip van tijd en ruimte, vormde een brug tussen de relativiteitstheorie van Einstein en het ontstaan van het heelal, en heeft mee de basis gelegd voor de vooruitgang in de hedendaagse theoretische fysica.
In 2006 pleitte Hawking openlijk voor de kolonisatie van andere planeten. Zijn eigen volgende doel was daarom ook om eens naar de ruimte te gaan. Hij grapte toen dat “Richard Branson hem daar misschien wel bij kan helpen.” Een jaar later deed de miljardair dat ook. Of toch een beetje. Hawking ging niet écht de ruimte in, maar kon dankzij een wetenschappelijke vlucht toch gewichtloosheid ervaren. De kosten van die vlucht werden volledig gedragen door Branson.
FOTO: PHOTO NEWS
10. VERJAARDAG VAN EINSTEIN EN PI.
Stephen Hawking werd geboren op 8 januari 1942. Dat was op de 300ste verjaardag van de dood van Galileo, de Italiaanse fysicus, wiskundige, filosoof en astronoom die ook wel de ‘Vader van de Moderne Wetenschap’ wordt genoemd. De dag waarop Hawking stierf, 14 maart, is ook de dag waarop Albert Einstein in 1879 werd geboren. Hawking werd en wordt ook wel de Albert Einstein van deze generatie genoemd. En 14 maart is ook pi-dag, de dag die wereldwijd door wiskundigen wordt gevierd. Die dag, 3/14, verwijst naar de eerste drie cijfers van pi, een van de belangrijkste wiskundige begrippen.
Are Aliens Trying To Contact US? Astronomers Spot Brightest Ever Fast Radio Burst
Are Aliens Trying To Contact US? Astronomers Spot Brightest Ever Fast Radio Burst
People are divided between whether or not the mysterious FastRadio Bursts are signals sent from an advanced alien civilization or a natural cosmic phenomenon.
Now, astronomers have registered another mysterious fast radioburst, and they say it is the brightest on so far.
The enigmatic signal could help astronomers pinpoint its cosmic source and understand what exactly is causing it.
Are FRB signals from an alien civilization?
FRB or Fast Radio Bursts are extremely brief yet extremely bright pulses of radio emissions that have caused confusion among astronomers for more than a decade.
First spotted in 2008, after 11 years, experts have not been able to determine the exact origin of the mysterious radio emissions that only last a few milliseconds.
Astronomers say that their extremely unusual signal strength may help decipher their mysterious origin.
Some have claimed that the signals come from an advanced alien civilization, while others say that the universe is to blame.
The truth is, we still don’t know.
So far, astronomers have managed to detect 33 FRBs since 2007, but two groups of astronomers have uncovered three more mystery signals in the last few days.
The first signals were uncovered by BreakthroughListen, which looks for signs of intelligent life in the universe.
The second and third signal was spotted by researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia-
All three signals were found thanks to Australia’s Parkes Telescope.
Speaking to the New Scientist about the new FRB signals, Peter Williams, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said: “Finding three this quickly is quite unusual. It seems like it was just luck.”
FRBs are a curious phenomenon.
A message from the stars?
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
So far, only one FRB ever cataloged has been detected to flashmore thanonce: an object known as FRB 121102 in a galaxy about three billion light-years away.
However, despite this rare event, astronomers say that other FRBs also flash more times, it’s just that they are too dim for us to see.
However, after the detection of the FRBs in March of 2018, Professor MauraMcLaughlin at West Virginia University in Morgantown,
says future detections could be much easier if the repeating FRB hypothesis is correct.
Professor McLaughlin said: “Everyone’s sort of jumping on this bandwagon of looking for FRBs in the background all the time no matter what else is going on. This should lead to a huge uptick in detections in the next year or so.”
Experts from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in March 2017 claimed a solar-powered transmitter using sunlight cast on an area twice the size of Earth could generate enough energy to be ‘seen’ by far away viewers.
Exeperts said that the most readonsable use for this incredilbe amount og enery wuld be to drive intertellar light sails, devices that would rely on a steady beam from the transmitter, allowing ‘alien’ spaceships to mtravel across the universe.
Scientists argue that the so-called FRBs could be evidence of said sails. Observers from Earth only see the brief flash as the sail, its host planet, its star, and the galaxy all move relative to us, making the signal to sweep across the sky, only pointing at Earth for a short moment.
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British Physicist Stephen Hawking Died Aged 76 In Cambridge
British Physicist Stephen Hawking Died Aged 76 In Cambridge
British physicist Stephen Hawking died Wednesday, March 14, 2018, at the age 76, according to his family.
One of the most prestigious scientists and one of the most popular theoretical physicists of the last decades has begun his never-ending journey through the fabrics of the universe.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of our father,” said his children Lucy, Robert and Tim.
“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live for many years,” they said in a statement.
Professor Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, in the United Kingdom, and was considered one of the most influential scientists since the great Albert Einstein, not only for his decisive contributions to scientific progress, but also for his constant concern to bring science closer to the public and his extraordinary courage against the degenerative disease that he battled against that put him in a wheelchair.
Hawking needed an electronic synthesizer to be able to speak, but his voice ended up being heard all over the world.
To move around, he used his chair, which he controlled with the movement of head and eyes.
Son of a biologist who decided to take his family out of London to save them from the German bombings during World War II, Hawking grew up in the city of St Albans.
As a student, he soon proved how important he would eventually become for society.
He graduated with honors in Physics at Oxford and later obtained a postgraduate degree in Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.
At the age of only 21, everything changed for the young Stephen Hawking. He began noticing that his movements were getting clumsy, and he had difficulties moving. Soon after, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron disease.
At that time, he was planning the wedding with Jane Wilde, his first wife.
The doctors did not bring good news, predicting that he would not live beyond two years.
“The commitment saved my life, it gave me a reason to live,” he said years later.
The couple had three children.
Hawking defied all odds and the disease progressed more slowly than expected, but over the years it ended up leaving him with only two functionally fingers and a few facial muscles.
However, this ‘limitation’ did not prevent him from continuing to work on his theories and disseminating them through books and public events.
In 1988 he had published his book “Brief History of Time”, which sold more than 10 million copies, becoming a worldwide bestseller.
Through his work and his books, he proved that the passion to which he devoted his entire life, to study the laws that govern the universe, could also be attractive to the general public and not only scientists.
He was right.
He turned his disability into one of the keys to his scientific work.
When he lost the mobility of the arms, he insisted on being able to solve the most complex calculations with the mind alone, without writing down the equations.
What other’s saw as a limitation, Professor Hawking saw as another challenge to overcome, and through his years he proved that he was really good at overcoming challenges.
Soon he began to propose revolutionary theses that questioned the established scientific theories.
One of his most daring statements was to consider that the General Theory of Relativity formulated by Einstein implied that space and time had a beginning in the Big Bang and its end in black holes.
In 1976, and following the statements of quantum physics, Hawking concluded in his “Theory of Radiation” that black holes—regions with such powerful gravity that even light cannot escape—were capable of emitting energy and losing matter.
His theories never stalled, and he continued developing them throughout the years.
In 2004 he refuted himself and came to the conclusion that black holes do not absorb everything.
In other words, Hawking played a definitive role in the diffusion of cosmology in terms easy to understand for the general public.
Aware that his book had sold a lot, but due to its complexity had been understood and read through by few, Hawking worked on a shorter version (of the already brief history of time) and made it more “readable”.
The British physicist tried, by all means, to get people closer to the mysteries of the universe and in search of this objective he never hesitated to resort to humor and was able to find a bright, small light, even inside of black holes.
Hawking won the Albert Einstein Award, the Wolf Prize, the Copley Medal, and the Fundamental Physics Prize, but the Nobel prize, however, eluded him.
Coup d'œil sur les cinq principaux apports scientifiques de Stephen Hawking, qui vient de nous quitter. Ce singulier personnage était un spécialiste... des singularités.
Stephen Hawking, l'astrophysicien qui a fait aimer la scienceLe grand physicien Stephen Hawking est décédé le 14 mars 2018. Véritable légende de la physique, il fut aussi un très talentueux vulgarisateur. Retour sur la vie hors du commun de ce savant qui a su se faire aimer du public et rendre accessible ses travaux de recherche scientifique : trous noirs, théorie des supercordes, rayonnement de Hawking, théorèmes sur les singularités... La science lui dit un immense merci.
Célèbre auprès du grand public pour son activité de vulgarisation, le physicien Stephen Hawkingétait d'abord un cosmologiste qui a travaillé à la description de l'univers et de son histoire dans le cadre de la théorie de la Relativité générale. Ses travaux, qui concernent également les trous noirs, ont porté initialement sur la fameuse singularité cosmologique du Big Bang.
Voici, sous une forme extrêmement simplifiée (que les physiciens nous pardonnent), ses cinq contributions majeures à la fresque moderne du Cosmos.
1 - La croissance de la surface d’un trou noir
Stephen Hawking réfléchit, un soir de novembre 1970 alors qu'il va se coucher, à la façon de décrire un trou noir. « Mon invalidité rend cette opération très longue, aussi avais-je le temps de réfléchir » raconte-t-il dans Une brève histoire du temps. Il s'attarde sur les phénomènes se déroulant sur l'horizon, cette limite immatérielle marquant en quelque sorte la frontière du trou noir. Il aboutit à une curieuse conclusion. « Si deux trous noirs se heurtaient avant de se fondre pour n'en former plus qu'un, la surface de l'horizon du trou noir final serait supérieure à la somme des surfaces des trous noirs originaux. Cette propriété de non-croissance limite considérablement le comportement possible d'un trou noir. Je fus si excité par ma découverte que je ne dormis guère cette nuit-là. Le lendemain, j'appelais Roger Penrose. »
Si la surface d'un trou noir ne peut que croître, ce comportement évoque une quantité physique qui se comporte de la même manière : l'entropie. Elle décrit le désordre d'un système et le second principe de la thermodynamique affirme qu'elle ne peut que croître dans un système isolé. Mais le rapprochement semblait initialement problématique. Si un trou noir se trouve entouré de gaz qu'il avale en partie, il absorbe aussi l'entropie du gaz. Or, le second principe de la thermodynamique implique que l'entropie totale de l'ensemble gaz-trou noir ne peut diminuer. Il n'est pas violé que si la surface de l'horizon des événements est bien une mesure de l'entropie du trou noir. Alors, en effet, elle augmente avec l'absorption de ce gaz.
Or, un système physique qui a de l'entropie a aussi une température et ce qui a une température émet un rayonnement. Et à cette époque, les trous noirs ne sont pas censés émettre quoi que ce soit.
La voûte céleste telle que la verrait un observateur situé près d’un hypothétique trou noir devant le centre de notre galaxie.
Cherchant à démontrer que c'est bien le cas Hawking prédit finalement, à sa grand surprise, que les trous noirs doivent bel et bien rayonner. Cette prédiction de l'évaporation des trous noirs est une découverte faite par le calcul par Stephen Hawking en 1974. Il montre surtout que si un trou noir émet un rayonnement, il doit adopter le spectre du rayonnement d'un corps chaud particulier que l'on appelle un corps noir, avec une température ne dépendant que de sa masse. C'est précisément ce qu'il fallait pour assurer l'existence de l'entropie d'un trou noir. Il trouve cette explication dans la physique quantique. Les fluctuations quantiques du vide créent des paires de particule-antiparticule virtuelles qui ne vivent que très peu de temps avant de s'annihiler mutuellement sans quoi elles violeraient le principe de conservation de l'énergie.
Tout près de l'horizon d'un trou noir, juste son extérieur, les paires de particules peuvent être séparées par des forces de marée qui fournissent de l'énergie et rendent ces particules réelles, autant que celles qui nous entourent. Lorsque l'une d'elles passe l'horizon, pour un observateur extérieur, elle se comporte comme une particule d'énergie négative, tandis que l'autre a une énergie positive. Le même observateur extérieur voit donc de l'énergie émise par le trou noir sous forme de particules (de matière ou d'antimatière), lequel absorbe en permanence un flux d'énergie négative, ce qui, d'après la célébrissime formule E=mc2, correspond à une perte de masse. Un trou noir s'évapore, annonce Stephen Hawking. Lentement mais sûrement.
Tout ce qui tombe dans un trou noir disparaît à jamais. Ou plus exactement, le trou noir semble ne retenir des caractéristiques de cette matière que sa masse, son moment cinétique et ses charges électriques et magnétiques. Plus de formes ni de structures : une planète entière avec tout ce qu'elle portait serait réduite à une collection d'objets décrits par ces quatre nombres. Autrement dit, toute l'information, qui était nécessaire pour décrire (ou représentée par) les océans, les plaques tectoniques, les organismes vivants, les bibliothèques ou les pages Web, aura disparu. Impossible dit la physique quantique qui, pourtant, affirme que le rayonnement de corps noir émit par le trou noir ne doit pas coder de l'information, étant aussi désordonné que possible !
Malgré de gros efforts, ce paradoxe n'est pas résolu.
Entre 1965 et le début des années 1970, Roger Penrose s'attaque à la question de savoir si la formation des trous noirs avec un horizon des évènements implique aussi qu'il s'y forme une singularité de l'espace-temps, avec une courbure et une densité infinie. Sa réponse est positive et Stephen Hawking va étendre les travaux de Penrose, d'abord seul puis en sa compagnie, au cas du Big Bang. Là aussi, les deux chercheurs aboutissent à la conclusion qu'une singularité est inévitable... si la théorie de la relativité générale seule est employée pour décrire ces phénomènes, précisent-ils.
En 1983, James Hartle et Stephen Hawking proposent une description quantique de l'univers tout près du Big Bang dans laquelle le temps se comporte exactement comme une dimension d'espace. Le temps ne serait apparu, si l'on peut dire, qu'après la fameuse ère de Planck relevant d'une théorie quantique de la gravitation. L'espace-temps doit alors se décrire non pas uniquement par des nombres réels mais aussi par des nombres complexes, au sens mathématique du terme, le temps pouvant alors même être décrit uniquement par la partie imaginaire de ces nombres (toujours au sens mathématique du terme). Il n'y aurait plus alors de singularité. Au moment du Big Bang, le temps tel que nous le ressentons aujourd'hui n'existait pas et la question de l'avant-Big Bang n'a plus de sens.
Natuurkundige Stephen Hawking overleden. Dit waren zijn meest opzienbarende uitspraken over parallelle universa en aliens
Natuurkundige Stephen Hawking overleden. Dit waren zijn meest opzienbarende uitspraken over parallelle universa en aliens
Natuurkundige Stephen Hawking is op 76-jarige leeftijd overleden, zo laat zijn familie in een persbericht weten. De professor overleed vreedzaam in zijn slaap in zijn huis in Cambridge.
In 2017 zei Hawking, die op zijn 21ste werd gediagnosticeerd met de ongeneeslijke spierziekte ALS, dat hij nooit had verwacht 75 te worden.
Door de ziekte belandde hij in een rolstoel en moest hij een computer gebruiken om te kunnen communiceren.
Niet bestaan
Hawking was één van de belangrijkste experts op het gebied van zwaartekracht en zwarte gaten. Laten we eens kijken naar opvallende uitspraken die hij heeft gedaan.
Begin 2014 schokte hij de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap door te stellen dat zwarte gaten niet bestaan.
Hawking beweerde dat de waarnemingshorizon, de onzichtbare grens van een zwart gat waarachter niets zou kunnen ontsnappen, niet bestaat.
Ontsnappen
In plaats daarvan is er een ‘schijnbare horizon’, die materie en energie tijdelijk opvangt en vervolgens weer uitspuwt.
“De kwantumtheorie maakt het mogelijk dat energie en informatie ontsnappen uit een zwart gat,” zei hij.
Een jaar later, in augustus 2015, zei Hawking tijdens een bijeenkomst in Zweden dat materie die in een zwart gat valt tevoorschijn kan komen in een andere dimensie.
Parallel universum
Met behulp van Hawkingstraling kan alles wat erin valt ergens anders in ons universum of zelfs in een parallel universum weer tevoorschijn komen, zei hij.
“De boodschap is dat zwarte gaten niet zo zwart zijn als we denken,” voegde hij toe.
Andere dimensie
Hawking suggereerde verder dat aliens mogelijk in een andere dimensie leven. Hij baseerde dit op de M-theorie, een snaartheorie die resulteert in een heelal met 11 dimensies.
Volgens deze theorie bestaan er 10 tot de macht 500 universa, die via zwarte gaten met elkaar in verbinding staan.
OP STEEDS MEER PLAATSEN VREEMDE GLOED AAN DE NACHTHEMEL...
OP STEEDS MEER PLAATSEN VREEMDE GLOED AAN DE NACHTHEMEL...
Al een tijdje duiken er verhalen en beelden op van mensen die een soort vreemde gloed waarnemen aan de nachtelijke hemel.
Er lijkt nu geen twijfel meer over te bestaan dat er werkelijk "iets" is dat dit veroorzaakt, want ook op satellietbeelden is het nu te zien.
Het ene na het andere vreemde bericht begint nu te verschijnen over een vreemde soort gloed aan de nachthemel. We hebben daar onlangs in een artikel al wat voorbeelden van gegeven en hieronder is er nog één.
Een paar mensen uit Ontario in Canada zijn naar een concert geweest van Alice Cooper en rijden rond een uur of één 's nachts naar huis als ze een vreemde gloed aan de hemel waarnemen. Een beetje alsof de zon door de wolken wil heen breken, wat natuurlijk normaliter niet gebeurt rond dat tijdstip.
Mr. MBB333 is iemand die interessante video's op Youtube publiceerd. Het was hem op satellietbeelden opgevallen dat er zich op verschillende plekken een soort flits of flikkering aan de hemel voordoet. Deze duren zo'n drie kwartier en hij vroeg zich af wat dat kon zijn.
Tegelijkertijd krijgt hij meldingen binnen van mensen die een vreemde gloed aan de hemel waarnemen, lang nadat de zon is ondergegaan.
Opmerkingen zoals
De hemel is veel lichter en er is een soort gloed op de plek waar de zon is onder gegaan.
Sommige avonden zie ik een sterke gloed, lang nadat de zon is ondergegaan.
Het is een soort gloed die zich over de gehele horizon verspreid.
Ik kan hetzelfde zeggen voor de nachthemel hier in Opononi in Nieuw Zeeland. Ik kan de horizon in het westen niet zien, maar er hangt absoluut een gloed in het westen, lang nadat de zon is ondergegaan.
Ik was in februari op een cruise naar Puerto Vallarta en ik zag die gloed nadat het donker werd en de zon was ondergegaan.
Nadat bovenstaande video was gepubliceerd, ontving MrMBB333 diverse reacties van mensen die ook het vreemde licht aan de hemel hebben gezien.
In de video hierna worden deze meldingen behandeld en in kaart gebracht en wat het ook moge zijn, er is "iets" dat een vreemde gloed of flikkering veroorzaakt wat zichtbaar is aan de nachthemel.
“De wereld is een prachtige mens en briljante wetenschapper kwijt”: beroemdheden reageren verslagen op overlijden Stephen Hawking - HLN.be- DEEL I
“De wereld is een prachtige mens en briljante wetenschapper kwijt”: beroemdheden reageren verslagen op overlijden Stephen Hawking - HLN.be - DEEL I
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WETENSCHAPVan over heel de wereld stromen verslagen reacties binnen op het overlijden van de wereldberoemde fysicus Stephen Hawking, die vannacht overleed.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, oprichter van het wereldwijde web, reageerde als een van de eersten op Twitter. “We hebben een kolossale denker en een ongelooflijke geest verloren. Rust in vrede, Stephen Hawking.”
Ook de ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA reageerde verslagen en noemt Hawking “een vermaarde fysicus en ambassadeur van de wetenschap”. “Zijn theorieën hebben een universum van mogelijkheden geopend die wij en de wereld kunnen verkennen. Moge je blijven vliegen als superman in microzwaartekracht, zoals je in 2014 aan onze astronauten zei.′
Remembering Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist and ambassador of science. His theories unlocked a universe of possibilities that we & the world are exploring. May you keep flying like superman in microgravity, as you said to astronauts on @Space_Station in 2014
“Professor Hawking was een uniek wezen, dat niet enkel in Cambridge maar over de hele wereld met genegenheid zal worden herinnerd”, reageerde Stephen Toope, de vicevoorzitter van de universiteit van Cambridge, waar Stephan Hawking heeft gestudeerd en gewerkt. “Zijn uitzonderlijke bijdrage aan de wetenschappelijke kennis en het begrijpelijk maken van wetenschap en wiskunde zijn een onuitwisbare erfenis.”
De bekende Britse fysicus Brian Cox treedt hem bij: “Hij wordt terecht beschreven als één van de grootsten. Hij was ervan overtuigd dat het publieke engagement van wetenschap, beschrijven wat we doen als wetenschappers, niet alleen waardevol is, maar ook nodig.”
Sundar Pichai, ceo van Google, noemt Hawking “een prachtige mens en een briljante wetenschapper”.
Dezelfde boodschap bij Satya Nadella, ceo van Microsoft: “We hebben een grote verloren vandaag. Stephen Hawking zal herinnerd worden voor zijn ongelooflijke bijdrages aan de wetenschap, door complexe theorieën en concepten toegankelijker te maken voor de massa.”
We lost a great one today. Stephen Hawking will be remembered for his incredible contributions to science – making complex theories and concepts more accessible to the masses. He’ll also be remembered for his spirit and unbounded pursuit to gain a complet…https://lnkd.in/gKNqEDF
De Indiase premier Narendra Modi roemt Hawkings’ “moed en doorzettingsvermogen” dat “mensen over de hele wereld inspireerde”. “Zijn pionierswerk maakte van onze wereld een betere plek.”
Professor Stephen Hawking was an outstanding scientist and academic. His grit and tenacity inspired people all over the world. His demise is anguishing. Professor Hawking’s pioneering work made our world a better place. May his soul rest in peace.
“Zijn overlijden laat een intellectuele vacuüm achter. Maar het is niet leeg”, schrijft de Amerikaanse astrofysicus Neil deGrasse Tyson bij een foto van hem en Hawking.
His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake. But it's not empty. Think of it as a kind of vacuum energy permeating the fabric of spacetime that defies measure. Stephen Hawking, RIP 1942-2018.
De Britse staatssecretaris Tobias Ellwood noemde Hawking een “inspiratie voor allen”. “Je belichaamde echte moed boven tegenspoed, terwijl je de wonderen van het universum aan de wereld uitlegde. Je prestaties symboliseren de kracht van de menselijke geest. Een inspiratie voor ons allemaal, ongeacht onze situatie, om naar de sterren te reiken, vanwaar je nu op ons schijnt.”
Europees president Donald Tusk citeerde een van Hawkings bekendste opmerkingen over zijn ziekte, ALS: “It matters if you just don’t give up.” De Britse premier Theresa May, is eveneens lof: “Professor Stephen Hawking was een briljante en buitengewone geest, een van de grootste wetenschappers van zijn generatie. Zijn moed, humor en doorzettingsvermogen om het onderste uit de kan te halen in dit leven, waren een inspiratiebron. Zijn erfenis wordt niet vergeten.”
“Triomf van wilskracht”
Stephen Hawking is “ongetwijfeld één van de grootste wetenschappers van onze tijd”. Zo omschreef natuurkundige Thomas Hertog (KU Leuven) de overleden fysicus en kosmoloog, met wie hij gedurende jaren samenwerkte. Maar zijn beroemdheid overstijgt de wetenschap, aldus Hertog in De Ochtend (Radio 1), die hem zag als een “triomf van wilskracht” en zijn tomeloze inzet voor de wetenschap prees. Thomas Hertog doctoreerde eind jaren ’90 bij Hawking aan de universiteit van Cambridge, maar bleef ook nadien met hem samenwerken, tot enkele weken geleden.
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“De wereld is een prachtige mens en briljante wetenschapper kwijt”: beroemdheden reageren verslagen op overlijden Stephen Hawking - HLN.be - DEEL II
“De wereld is een prachtige mens en briljante wetenschapper kwijt”: beroemdheden reageren verslagen op overlijden Stephen Hawking -HLN.be - DEEL II
Sterren
Eddie Redmayne, de acteur die Hawking vertolkt in “The Theory Of Everything”, is vol lof over Hawking: “We hebben een schitterende geest, een ongelooflijke wetenschapper en de grappigste man die ik ken, verloren.”
De Foo Fighters noemen Hawking in hun eigen stijl dan weer “een fucking legende”, terwijl acteur Macaulay Culkin hem “een genie en mijn favoriete Simpsons-figuur” noemt.
YouTubeDe bekende Britse natuurkundige, kosmoloog en wiskundige Stephen Hawking is overleden.
WETENSCHAPDe bekende Britse natuurkundige, kosmoloog en wiskundige Stephen Hawking is overleden. Dat meldt zijn familie. Hawking werd 76 jaar. De professor overleed vreedzaam in zijn slaap thuis in het Britse Cambridge.
Hawkings kinderen Lucy, Robert en Tim lieten in een verklaring erg verdietig te zijn over het overlijden van hun vader. “Hij was een groot wetenschapper en een buitengewone man wiens werk en nalatenschap nog jarenlang zullen voortleven. Zijn moed en vasthoudendheid en zijn begaafdheid en humor inspireerden mensen wereldwijd. Hij zei eens: ‘Het universum zou niet veel voorstellen als het niet de plek was waar de mensen van wie je houdt wonen.’ We zullen hem voor altijd missen”, klinkt het.
’Hij zei eens: ‘Het universum zou niet veel voorstellen als het niet de plek was waar de mensen van wie je houdt wonen.’ We zullen hem voor altijd missen’
Hawkings kinderen Lucy, Robert en Tim
Spraakcomputer
De in Oxford geboren astrofysicus leed aan de neurologische ziekte ALS. De wetenschapper kon uitsluitend via een spraakcomputer communiceren en bewoog zich al tientallen jaren per rolstoel voort. De aandoening werd vastgesteld in 1963, toen hij 21 jaar oud was. Artsen gaven hem toen hooguit nog twee jaar te leven. In 2017 zei Hawking aan de BBC dat hij “nooit had verwacht 75 te worden”.
Hawking hield zich bezig met zwarte gaten, het heelal en kosmologie. Hij publiceerde in 1988 het boek ‘A brief history of time’, waarvan meer dan tien miljoen exemplaren werden verkocht. In ons land verscheen het boek onder de titel ‘Het Heelal’. Daarin legde Hawking op een toegankelijke manier de volledige geschiedenis van het gehele universum uit, vanaf de oerknal. Het boek werd een bestseller.
Hij zei aan de BBC dat hij geloofde dat zijn grootste verwezenlijking was dat hij ontdekte dat zwarte gaten niet volledig zwart zijn. Dat is cruciaal om “te begrijpen hoe paradoxen tussen kwantummechanica en de algemene relativiteitstheorie kunnen opgeklaard worden”.
APDe bekende Britse natuurkundige, kosmoloog en wiskundige Stephen Hawking is overleden.
God
In ‘Het Heelal’ hield Hawking nog rekening met het bestaan van God, maar in ‘The Grand Design’ (2010) blijkt dat hij tot andere inzichten was gekomen. Natuurwetten als de zwaartekracht verklaren de oerknal en het begin van ons heelal. “Het is niet noodzakelijk om naar God te wijzen om het universum in werking te zetten”, schreef hij.
In 2014 verscheen over het leven van Hawking de film ‘The Theory Of Everything’. Zelf heeft de wetenschapper ook een aantal tv-optredens gemaakt, zo verscheen hij een aantal keer in de populaire comedyserie ‘The Big Bang Theory’.
Hawking werd op 8 januari 1942 geboren in een familie van intellectuelen. Hij kreeg in 1959 een beurs voor de Oxford University, en drie jaar later verhuisde hij naar de universiteit van Cambridge om er onderzoek te voeren binnen de kosmologie. Op zijn 32ste werd hij het jongste lid van de Royal Society, het meest prestigieuze Britse academische instituut. In 1979 werd hij professor in de wiskunde aan Cambridge University.
Photo NewsDe bekende Britse natuurkundige, kosmoloog en wiskundige Stephen Hawking is overleden.
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De grootste prestatie van Stephen Hawking? “Elke mens moed geven dat je ondanks veel miserie er toch het beste van kan maken” - HLN.be
De grootste prestatie van Stephen Hawking? “Elke mens moed geven dat je ondanks veel miserie er toch het beste van kan maken” - HLN.be
Het ultieme portret van één van de meest briljante wetenschappers uit de moderne geschiedenis
Steven Swinnen
BELGAIMAGE
WETENSCHAP Niet kunnen spreken, niet kunnen wandelen en op school niet eens al te beste punten halen, maar toch uitgroeien tot één van de meest briljante wetenschappers van de moderne geschiedenis. Lijkt een mirakel, maar net dié heeft Stephen Hawking (76) tot zijn dood altijd met geniale wetenschappelijke theorieën bestreden. Zijn grootste prestatie? “Elke mens moed geven dat je ondanks veel miserie er toch het beste van kan maken.”
Het bestaan van een God – “sprookje voor wie nog bang is in het donker” – heeft hij vol vuur ontkracht. Maar in dat geval moet het toch wel onwaarschijnlijk straf toeval zijn dat Stephen William Hawking na zijn dood met wetenschappelijke precisie als een dominosteentje past tussen twee andere van de briljantste breinen in de geschiedenis van de mensheid. De Britse fysicus werd namelijk geboren op 8 januari 1942, dag op dag precies 300 jaar na de dood van de Italiaanse astronoom Galileo Galilei en stierf vandaag op 14 maart, oftewel op de kop 139 jaar na de geboortedag van Albert Einstein.
Net als geniale warhoofd Einstein in zijn tijd was Hawking de voorbije decennia óók de celebrity onder de wetenschappers. Ook bezitter van een – door ziekte - nogal karakteristiek uiterlijk én ook dankzij een steeds langer lijstje met inspirerende uitspraken – doorgaans doorspekt met zelfrelativering en nederigheid, zoals “wie opschept over zijn IQ is een loser” dixit de man met een zeldzaam IQ van 160 – groeide Hawking uit tot de erudiete chouchou van het grote publiek. Ook wie zijn boeken over de gravitatie-singulariteiten met betrekking tot de algemene relativiteitstheorie en de vernieuwende blikken op de quantummechanica niet op het nachtkastje had liggen, kon geboeid zijn door zijn lezingen, interviews en vele tv-optredens.
REUTERS
Natuurlijk had Hawking meteen beziens als hij scheefgezakt in een wat te grote kostuumvest in zijn gemotoriseerde rolstoel over een podium rolde, maar het curiosum bezat wel de zeldzame gave om complexe materie uit de wereld van de wiskunde en de kosmos min of meer verteerbaar uit te leggen. Zoveel mogelijk mensen inspireren om naar de sterren in plaats van naar hun voeten te kijken was zijn grote doel.
Nochtans de jonge Stephen Hawking - zoon van een vooraanstaande dokter – was niet meteen de briljantste student begin jaren zestig in Oxford. Hij was begeesterd door wis- en natuurkunde, maar blokte niet al te graag en dus waren zijn resultaten navenant. Proffen hadden al snel in de gaten dat Hawking een ‘mastermind’ was, maar hij kon ook al eens vervelend uit de hoek komen. Na een matig rapport kwam Hawking op een deliberatieronde zelfs eens pleiten om hem toch door te laten zodat hij naar Cambridge kon. Zo niet zou hij nog in Oxford blijven en plots was de keuze snel gemaakt.
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Doodsvonnis op zijn 21ste
Op de unief van Cambridge mocht hij doctoreren in de toegepaste wiskunde en vond Hawking wél z’n draai, maar hij werd ziek. Op z’n 21ste begon hij plots te stuntelen, ging hij moeizaam praten en kreeg hij met de zenuwziekte ALS van de dokters al z’n doodvonnis. Hooguit 2 jaar konden de witjassen hem nog geven. Het werden er uiteindelijk nog 55. Omdat Hawking – geluk bij een ongeluk – de trage variant had van de ongeneeslijke ziekte, die finaal z’n hele lichaam zou verlammen.
Dat hij zo jong al eens over de rand van het ravijn moest gluren, werkte enigszins als een bevrijding voor Hawking. “Er hing dan wel een donkere wolk over mijn toekomst, maar ik bleek – tot mijn verrassing – meer van het leven te genieten dan voordien en zo begon ik vooruitgang te maken in mijn werk.” Met revolutionaire ideeën in de fysica en door wiskundige formules los te laten op het ontstaan van het heelal schoot de wetenschapper Hawking zelf als een komeet de hoogte in. Hij was als ‘Lucasian professor of mathematics’ een verre opvolger van Isaac Newton in Cambridge en bezette voor meer dan dertig jaar één van de meest belangrijke leerstoelen ter wereld. Hawking voegde elk jaar de meest bekwame doctoraatstudent toe aan zijn team en dat bleek eind jaren negentig onze landgenoot Thomas Hertog te zijn, inmiddels professor natuurkunde aan de KU Leuven en jarenlang een vriend van Hawking.
Zwarte gaten
“Zijn systeem om jaarlijks één doctorandus uit te kiezen zorgde wel voor grote ijver onder de studenten”, zegt Hertog, die tot twee weken geleden nog contact had met de wetenschapper. “Hij was de abstracte denker die in z’n hoofd allerlei concepten bedacht die wij dan mochten uitpluizen. Zoals zijn hypotheses over hoe de zwarte gaten werken en de oerknal. Onder leiding van Hawking ontstond een soort wetenschappelijke commune waarvan hij de inspirerende, toegankelijke en heel warme leider was. Net als op een school deelde hij aan ieder van ons huistaakjes uit. Door zijn ziekte kon Stephen niet langer nog zelf al die wiskundige berekeningen uitvoeren.” Met die sluipende aftakeling die hem hoe langer hoe meer aan banden legde, had Hawking het wel lastig. Hij kroop pas in z’n rolstoel wanneer het écht niet meer anders kon, maar schepte er dan later wel weer genoegen in om als een wervelwind door de unief te razen.
BELGAIMAGE
Zere tenen
Ontelbare studenten hebben vandaag nog een mooi aandenken aan Hawking in de vorm van de zere tenen die ze ooit hadden toen hij z’n draai weer eens te kort nam. Sommigen onder hen kregen zelfs ooit de onvergetelijke ‘Hawking spin’ op hun netvlies wanneer de wetenschapper met z’n door een joystick aangestuurde dansmoves uitpakte. ALS nam Hawking alles af behalve z’n verstand en z’n humor. Wanneer hij begin jaren tachtig niet meer verstaanbaar kan spreken, is er z’n echtgenote Jane Wilde – die hij op school leerde kennen toen hij nog gezond was en met wie hij drie kinderen had – om te tolken.
Communiceren met wenkbrauwen
Hawkings’ vrouw was ook zijn bewaarengel wanneer hij in ’85 bij een bezoek aan het CERN in Genève zo’n zware longontsteking opliep dat hij zo goed als op sterven lag. Wanneer de dokters voorstelden om de beademingsmachine maar stop te zetten, weigerde Jane en liet ze een tracheotomie (een snede in de luchtpijp) uitvoeren. Hierdoor verloor de wetenschapper volledig zijn stem, maar hij kwam er wel weer bovenop. Van dan af is Hawking voor de rest van z’n leven de klok rond afhankelijk van verpleging. Communiceren lukte enkel nog tergend traag door z’n wenkbrauwen te sturen naar de letters van het alfabet.
AP
De gekende monotone computerstem kwam enkele jaren later als een bevrijding. Met een knop kon de geleerde nu kiezen uit een databank met klanken, woorden en zinnen. De Brit sprak opeens een wat komisch, nasaal Amerikaans taaltje, maar zag dat wel als een gimmick. Ondanks de evolutie in spraaktechnologie hield hij vast aan die eerste computerstem, zelfs toen de Queen hem eens onder z’n neus wreef dat dat Amerikaans toch niet echt kon voor een Brit. Hoe dan ook: Hawking bleef rad van tong en gul met z’n droge humor. Toen het hem in een vol café tijdens een discussie met wetenschappers begon te dagen dat hij het met een bepaalde theorie over zwarte gaten verkeerd voor had, draaide hij eens z’n volumeknop volledig open en begon een oorverdovend ‘I’m coming out!’ door de kroeg te galmen. De boel op stelten natuurlijk en Hawking draaide gewoon de knop weer naar links en begon rustig te doceren.
REUTERS
Nobelprijs
En toch. Opvallend: zijn prijzen, medailles en eredoctoraten zijn niet te tellen, maar de oppergaai schoot Hawking nooit af. “Er zijn verschillende hypotheses waarom Hawking nooit de Nobelprijs gekregen heeft”, zegt sterrenkundige Leen Decin (KU Leuven), die de natuurkundige ook meermaals ontmoette. “Mogelijk is dat omdat hij als abstracte denker zijn tijd vooruit liep. Onze François Englert heeft zijn Nobelprijs ook pas gekregen nadat ze het Higgs-deeltje gevonden hebben.
Hawking heeft een theorie geschreven dat zwarte gaten toch niet helemaal zwart zijn en dat ze straling lekken. Alleen hebben we dat nog niet kunnen verifiëren met waarnemingen. Zijn nalatenschap mag nu wel theoretisch ogen, maar dat wil niets zeggen. Toen Einstein stierf was zijn relativiteitstheorie ook maar boekenwijsheid, maar later zijn daaraan verschillende belangrijke toepassingen zoals de GPS schatplichtig aan.”
Doorzettingsvermogen
Ook al zijn er dan nog geen tastbare uitvindingen aan Hawking toe te schrijven, zijn grote erfenis aan de maatschappij is volgens Thomas Hertog zijn onpeilbare doorzettingsvermogen. “Hawking liet elke mens dromen van wat mogelijk kan zijn. Stephen was verzot op wetenschap, maar ook op het leven en het avontuur. Wat hij ondanks zijn ziekte kon verwezenlijken is een triomf van de wilskracht op het noodlot.”
Tumultueus tweede huwelijk
Wat voor het genie altijd een vraagstuk is gebleven, was de vrouw. “Een compleet mysterie voor mij”, zo knipoogde hij eens tijdens een interview. Zijn huwelijk met zijn jeugdliefde Jane liep begin jaren negentig spaak. “Een kind met een fragiel ego”, zo schreef zijn ex-vrouw onomfloerst in haar biografie over de man met wie ze drie kinderen kreeg. Zijn ziekte en het feit dat hij daarover met haar niet kon of wilde spreken bleken een te grote horde. Daarna had Hawking nog een nogal tumultueus huwelijk met Elaine Mason, die een verpleegster van hem was geweest en volgens andere verzorgers haar man mishandelde. De politie kwam de klachten meermaals onderzoeken, maar de wetenschapper ging daar nooit op in. In 2006 ging het koppel desondanks toch uit elkaar.
De wetenschap is wél tot aan z’n dood de muze gebleven van Hawking. De jongste jaren trok hij zich meer en meer terug uit het openbare leven, maar betekende volgens Thomas Hertog niet dat hij de zaken maar op z’n beloop liet. “Twee weken geleden hadden we nog contact. Hij wist dat het einde voor hem snel naderde, maar hij is doorgegaan tot hij echt niet meer kon.” De grapjes over God die Hawking al beu zou zijn omdat de slimme geleerde zijn bestaan aan de hemelpoorten komt ondergraven ten spijt: als het Britse genie gelijk heeft gekregen is hij vandaag niet in één of ander hiernamaals. “Ik bekijk het brein als een computer die stopt met werken wanneer de onderdelen kapot zijn. Er is geen hemel of leven na de aarde voor kapotte computers.”
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Filer’s Files # 10 – 2018 Planetary Defense - PART I
Grand Teton National Park UFO on March 1, 2018
Filer’s Files # 10 – 2018 Planetary Defense - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: U.S. Releases UFO Files, Pentagon Fails to Capture Data About Alien Orbs, Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus, Asteroid Redirection for Planetary Defense, Abductee Says Aliens Asked Him About Jesus Christ, Manta Ray Ascending and Descending into the Ground, and Grand Teton National Park UFO.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Arizona, California, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Wyoming
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Australia, Brazil, India, Mexico,, Portugal, Poland, and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Projects
U.S. Releases UFO Files
Washington Post by Christopher Mellon st on March 9, 2018. Christopher Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He is an adviser to the To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science.
In December, the Defense Department declassified two videos documenting encounters between U.S. Navy F-18 fighters and unidentified aircraft. The first video captures multiple pilots observing and discussing a strange, hovering, egg-shaped craft, apparently one of a “fleet” of such objects, according to cockpit audio. The second shows a similar incident involving an F-18 attached to the USS Nimitz carrier battle group in 2004.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest
Pentagon Fails to Capture Data About Alien Orbs
Joseph Foster writes, An article was released on the Internet detailing Alien Orbs being observed over a period of time at the Wanaque Reservoir in New Jersey. As reported on September 29, 1999, scientists at the American Science Foundation were asked by a local computer company executive (ACC – Jack Schulman) to analyze claims contained in a study of the possibility of extraterrestrial life using a “door way” system along with some form of “resonant energy” to covertly study humanity.
Reportedly, after several months of studying gathered data, the scientists were no longer skeptical. Their studies indicated that there was in fact
“evidence” of a “so-called Vortex” located at the reservoir in Wanaque, NJ. Studies performed at the time authenticated that the “doorway system” does in fact exist and that it allows an unknown specie or species to travel without observation to any point in on the face of the earth using some gateway system.
In 1999 at the ‘Global Sciences Congress’ annual convention in Denver, Co. of that year, with 600 Attendees were provided a chance to witness the existence of what “Team Orb” described as a “Alien Observer Orbs”. 15 or so were captured live on Digital Cameras were shown to a “stunned” audience. This conference then supposedly turned into an Orb-fest with the Orbs almost obediently lining up for picture taking. This supposed behavior was indicative of a “human compatible intelligence” with even a sense of humor.
The portal itself was likened to the wormholes as described in the movie “Contact” with Jodie Foster. These portals were metamorphic and compared favorably to such interstellar wormholes potentially used by alien intelligence as a inter-galactic transportation system.
The study was documented by a hastily organized study team using captured stereo-optic and infra red images of these “beings” using this “doorway” system to transit to and from our world. They again are here to observe humanity and then to leave.
The technology used by these beings was beyond anything in the Pentagon’s arsenal and as such probably did not escape the Pentagon’s attention for long. The American Science Foundation Study Team (identified in the original article as TEAM ORB) observed the strange Vortex, followed by filming and cataloging Orb-like evidence of the alien species as it visits our planet through this apparent portal. It should also be noted that the Pentagon was now also gaining interest as the mystery deepened.
Not to be outdone, a new study team was organized by the Department of Defense who then installed permanent monitoring equipment and sensors at the Vortex location. These sensors were designed to collect images of the strange comings and goings of the beings using the Orb Doorway System.
After two weeks of monitoring the inner workings of the recording equipment had been “pulverized” by a force not yet identified. At the time, Pentagon “experts” were observing not only the Vortex but also the activities of the American Science Foundations’ “TEAM ORB”. When the equipment stopped working, it was inspected and found to be unopened leaving the Pentagon personnel at a loss to explain how their equipment was damaged, especially being that it was only on the insides with no evidence of entry.
Making light of the situation, Pentagon and FBI personnel had little to say about the actions of the traveling Orb phenomena other than to suggest that the phenomena captured by TEAM ORB (1’ to 5’ orbs as “documented”) was nothing but “pollen” caught by the camera equipment. It was also at this point a member of “Team Orb” reportedly commented: “Sorry, but I left my Electron Microscope home”. Apparently the Government found the situation amusing, because it was essentially powerless to stop the Orb entities from manifesting to private citizens at their homes and/or their offices”.
“The Beings trashed the Pentagon’s equipment” said one Team Orb member. At first they were quite annoyed because it looked like we had inadvertently caused the Pentagon and the NSA to bring in heavy equipment to study THEM. Afterwards, it seemed that they had gotten over it. Aliens apparently went up to the Pentagon’s equipment and used some form of technology on it, thus leaving a not too subtle message for the DoD, et al. They (the entities) find our concept of the use of the Military and war very primitive.
It was also reported that TEAM ORB received numerous offers of funding by high tech firms interested in gaining access to benefits coming from these scientific studies of Vortex phenomena as well as the Beings who use the Orb Doorway System to observe and study humanity. The commercialization would be “earth shaking”!
“If TEAM ORB can produce enough information about how the Vortex Doorway System works, imagine the benefits,” stated George
Gemmiel, an AT&T Executive who was one of several parties interviewed and definitely interested in the technology. Mr. Gemmiel expressed his interest to TEAM ORB being that AT&T independently verified that the Orbs were real and appeared to be a form of technology”. But whatever controls it does not appear to like us up there with our equipment, unlike how TEAM ORB is treated: their team members are welcomed by these objects every time they visit. We hope to interest TEAM ORB in a technology exchange agreement.”
Note: Joe Foster writes I have very limited firsthand knowledge of this article. That knowledge comes from the fact that at the time the article was written I was a consultant to AT&T with access to the company’s Global Email system directory. I was able to validate that this AT&T executive did in fact exist and that he was who he reported to be – JRF
Another Executive (David G.), who was an executive at SAIC Bellcore, indicated that his firm was also interested in the technological advantages offered by any remote alien species who might be visiting earth. To paraphrase, He indicated that if space-time could be conquered then we should be able to transcend the limitations of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, therefore advancing to a new understanding of the Universe and how we may explore it. This then could be done in real time, traveling light Years, in the matter of seconds. There was as described by the writer of the original report, TEAM ORB members offering to take the Orbs and the beings associated with them on “field trips” to NASA, The US Government, the Vatican, etc. offers reportedly resulted in interest, yet some trepidation remained. The Government’s offer caused the Pentagon to take up a position near the Wanaque Vortex. NASA indicated that they had in fact hired a director to look into the phenomena as well. The American Science Foundation team to that point had been highly successful in standing off the “debunkers” by providing authentication of their film methodology and artifacts as well as by taking various members of the public to the Vortex where they where they were “encouraged” to take their own photos of this remarkable find. “Humanity may not be ready for this discovery,” stated a TEAM ORB lead investigator, Bryan Williams, who was also one of the original discoverers of the Vortex Doorway System. Apparently these astral alien beings, or whatever they are, were ready for contact and interaction with Humanity. The opportunity was pursued in order to open a relationship with them and to gain insights as to who they are and what they may want from us. It also seemed to the investigators that there might have been some kind of conflict between competing Alien races of one order and that of another.
Accordingly they (the entities) may have been here to try to prepare us for the possibility of being drawn into a vast, political conflict, well beyond our experience and control. The fear being that there may be a time when a race (if not already here) pops into our Solar System through one of these Interstellar, Inter-dimensional “gateways” that allows one to transcend Einstein’s theory regarding “speed of light” limitations. An advanced species very well may have solved this problem and is now transiting the universe in such a manner (as in Carl Sagan’s “Contact”) to affect these visits.
As to the Pentagon’s “reported” interest, the message by the alien entity seems to have been ‘kids should not play with toys they don’t fully understand’. This probably also explains the Pentagon’s attempts to gain evidence of the phenomena by trying to Observe it Scientifically. Based upon the “destruction” of their monitors and sensors, the Pentagon team should have consulted with TEAM ORB directly before setting their equipment up and turning it on. Possible reason being, the entities were already fully aware of what they were doing and just wanted to let the Pentagon know!
As of this report, no other information is available however, the Computer company mentioned above was supposedly doing some PR for Team Orb group as well as providing limited “sponsorship” for part of its activities. ACC and Jack Schulman (associated with a AT&T Bell Labs reported incident back in the 90’s) seems to add some weight to the mystery surrounding this endeavor. Thanks to Fitzhugh MacCrae and Joe Foster. Orb photos – Credit AmericanComputerScienceAssociation Website
Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus’
Raymond A. Keller’s “The Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus” is the second exciting book in mythologist, magic realist, and ufologist that received the London Book Festival’s Honorable Mention. This is the second book in Dr. Raymond A. Keller’s internationally acclaimed and award-winning Venus Rising series. Some of the interesting and real individuals you’ll meet in this book of astounding science include: The German “Rocket Man” who saved New York City in early 1945, the wife of a Japanese prime minister who traveled to Venus in another dimension aboard an ethereal beam ship, a California contactee under constant surveillance by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and his public revelations that smashed the Venus Conspiracy. The team of Russian scientists probing the mysteries of Venusians life being monitored by the Above Top Secret United States Air Force’s “Project White Stork,” the mega-stars who have used various forms of magic to contact Venusians and other entities inhabiting the mysterious phantom zone known as “Dimension X.”
The enigmatic psychic Maria Orsic (shown) and the members of the Vril Social Club that inspired the early German science fiction writers and rocket scientists and countless others also appear in the well documented pages of the Venus Rising series. So take your protein pills and put your helmet on because we are going to momentarily be blasting off for high adventures on Venus with both the Cosmic Ray himself and his long-time friend and associate, the glorious Queen of Outer Space!
In the GISS model’s simulation, Venus’ slow spin exposes its dayside to the sun for 117 days almost two months at a time,” co-author and fellow GISS scientist Anthony Del Genio said. “This warms the surface and produces rain that creates a thick layer of clouds, which acts like an umbrella to shield the surface from much of the solar heating. The result is mean climate temperatures that are actually a few degrees cooler than Earth’s today.” Until recently, it was assumed that a thick atmosphere like that of modern Venus was required for the planet to have today’s slow rotation rate. However, newer research has shown that a thin atmosphere like that of modern Earth could have produced the same result. That means an ancient Venus with an Earth-like atmosphere could have had the same rotation rate it has today.
Manta Ray Ascending and Descending s into the Ground
By Dr. Bruce Cornet
On a number of occasions Bruce Cornet and others have witnessed the Manta Ray UFO rising up from a forest or descending through trees and disappearing into the ground. Dr. Ellen Crystall in her book, “Silent Invasion,” reported seeing the same thing, and believed that there was an underground alien base in the Wallkill River Valley of New York State. As a geologist I tested her theory by performing a three-year magnetic survey over a 24 square mile area to the east of Pine Bush, NY. I discovered numerous areas where anomalous magnetic data or signals were detected, which seemed to support Crystall’s hypothesis.
What was difficult for me at the time was the concept that these craft were defying our concepts of physics, and literally dematerializing or changing their atomic frequencies enough that their structures could pass through matter in our world. Yet there is much evidence from alien abduction research to suggest that our Visitors have the capability of passing themselves and their human captives through doors, walls, and windows without damaging them. Derrel Sims has focused on collecting anomalous imprints in glass windows, doors, and impressions of alien handprints and fingers, which are barriers to us, indicating that some residue of their physical being can be recorded in the objects they passed through. If they have the technology to do this, then why couldn’t they dematerialize an entire ship and pass it through the ground into an underground chamber or base?
There is much speculation that a shadow US government operation has retrieved and copied some types of alien spacecraft, which may account for the significant increase in sightings of Black Triangles over the United States since 1997. See discussions in Filer’s Files #6 and #7. It would appear that humans have achieved antigravity capability, but does this technology also include the capability of passing through material objects in our world?
I present data below to document what witnesses have seen, including myself, that the Manta Ray sightings in New York State do not belong to our government.
Vincent Polise conducted a decade of research on the Pine Bush UFO Phenomenon, beginning in the early 1990s, and wrote a book by that name in 2005. He describes witnessing a large craft in the woods at the end of Heritage Lane. I say “in the woods,” because the craft occupied the same space as the forest trees, and eventually disappeared into the ground. As far as I know, humans have not developed such technology, nor capability of dematerializing all of its structure except its lights, which can still be seen in our dimension. He states in his book (p. 74-75):
“I drove to the end of West Searsville Road and made left onto Heritage Lane. From the top, I was able to see the pulses of light starting to pick up speed. They were now pulsating at a rate of one flash per three seconds. They were becoming extremely rapid and as they pulsed quicker, I drove even faster to find them! I pulled the car over as fast as I could– the strobes were coming from the dense forest at the end of this street! I was in such a hurry to get to the origin of the lights that in my haste, I left all my camera equipment in the front seat. The gentleman I had just met parked right behind me as I ran into a neighbor’s backyard to get a closer look at the flashes. Curious, he cautiously followed and ended up standing next to me.
“We watched the lights from that close distance for a few minutes before the pulsing got more rapid and more intense. They were now flashing at a speed of one flash per second – it was like a laser light show! Suddenly the treetops were enveloped in a white mist through which we could still see the strobes. This mist was chalky white and highly unusual! We saw an enormous half-moon-shaped object rise above the trees.
We could see only half of the craft over the tree line but we could tell that the object was huge! When the craft rose above the trees it was very bright, but not so bright that we couldn’t peer into it. It was brilliant and full of colors much like a Ferris wheel on fire! The outer edges had balls of sparks rotating in a clockwise direction. These little balls were composed of beautiful colors: blue, yellow, red and some green. The craft’s center was lit up in a brilliant bright orange with shooting sparks all around the outer edges. I couldn’t see any metallic structure within the craft but such a light display had to be supported by one. The craft floated above the tree line for a full five seconds before it descended back into the ground.” (Polise, The Pine Bush Phenomenon, 2005)
The phenomenon witnessed by Polise and another witness is similar to what I and other sky watchers on West Searsville Road. observed and photographed on 24 October 1994. http://www.abcfield.force9.co.uk/b_cornet/Vol_2/toc.html
Across a field at the north end of West Searsville and Hill Ave. we saw the Manta Ray turn on its paired plasma lights surrounded by an ionized orange-red glow and slowly move forward just above the ground behind a row of trees. It then ascended high into the air, reversed direction, and flew south towards the Wilde farm, where it descended in a spiral loop before plunging into a dense forest at the eastern side of a farm field. Major George Filer was there with the Skywatch Group on West Searsville Road. that evening of 24 October 1994 when this performance took place, and witnessed this takeoff and disappearance into the forest.
Cliff Larson obtained a sunburned face during the sighting and George Filer
The picture below shows the lights of this craft seemingly oblivious to trees in its path, supporting what Polise describes in his book.
The Manta Ray can passes through matter in our dimension as if it didn’t exist, and disappear into the ground.
Eight (8) is ground level. Black line unrecorded path.
Another sighting by Tommy Sinisi and myself on 10 August 1996 occurred when we were camping on the eastern side of a low ridge next to the Wilde farm. We first heard a noise coming from the same forest where the above picture of the Manta Ray passing through the forest was taken. We looked across the fields surrounding the Wilde farm, and saw a blinking red light rising up from that very forest. When it got to about 500 feet altitude, a set of white plasma lights were turned on, and the Manta Ray began flying south. Soon thereafter it began turning west towards us and flew directly over us on the ridge. I have several recorded sounds of the Manta Ray that night fling over us, then going back to that forest, and descending into it, presumably into an underground hanger or cavity.The picture was taken from where I had parked my van on the east side of the low ridge overlooking the valley. The path of the Manta Ray, which was captured on time exposures, is shown as an inverted B&W image overlying the daytime picture. Conclusions: The Manta Ray is a specialized diamond-shaped antigravity platform capable of projecting different images to different skywatchers on the ground, and is capable of contracting its tail so that it becomes a flying triangle. It can pass into a parallel dimension, rendering itself invisible, and pass through the ground, presumably into an underground chamber or hanger. Dr. Ellen Crystall observed what I observed in the field, and hypothesized that there is an alien base underground. A 24 square mile magnetic survey which I conducted between 1992 and 1995 documented underground magnetic anomalies and signals coming out of the ground, supporting Crystall’s hypothesis. It is highly unlikely that this technology belongs to a covert Secret Space Program, although we can be reasonably certain that the US military is fully appraised of its existence and capability. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RehTHw0TD8Y&t=15s, Manta Ray Performs Tricks for Skywatch Group
Every few days asteroids pass close to Earth. An Asteroid named 2017 YZ4, the size of a bus that Nasa only spotted on Christmas Day made a ‘near miss’ with Earth on Dec 28, 2017. It passed by Earth at a distance of just 139,433 miles.
Jan 3, 2018 – An asteroid the size of a truck shot past Earth, It’s not going to hit us, but it’ll come within one fifth of the distance to the moon on. Feb 9, 2018. Known as 2018 CB, the asteroid will get as close as 44,000 miles from our planet around 5 p.m. EST.
A newly discovered asteroid flew safely past Earth on Feb 9, 2018 – may be larger than a celestial object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, five years ago. Called 2018 CB, it’s estimated to be from 50 to 130 feet in diameter, An asteroid VR -12 the size of a sports stadium zoomed close by Earth at 898.000 miles on Wednesday March 7, 2018. NASA is designing a spacecraft that could nudge asteroids out of Earth’s way. With its new Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, NASA is hoping to do just that: The refrigerator-sized missile is now in a preliminary design. “Our current objective is to find those down to 140 meters [wide], and we think the population of those is somewhere around 25,000 asteroids” Johnson says.
The threat of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth is a real-life concern. In 2013, for instance, a roughly 20-meter-wide meteor exploded over Russia, injuring about 1,500 people with its shock wave. “The hazard of asteroids crossing Earth’s orbit and being a potential for collision and impact with the Earth is a real thing,” says NASA planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson. He leads the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which finds, tracks and characterizes potentially hazardous asteroids and comets.
But what if we could nudge an asteroid out of our way by shooting a missile at it, changing the asteroid’s orbit just enough to avoid a collision with Earth? With its new Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, NASA is hoping to do just that: The refrigerator-sized missile is now in a preliminary design phase. If built, DART would take aim at an asteroid called Didymos B, which will (non-threateningly) approach Earth in 2022, and again in 2024.
“The DART mission is a technology demonstration,” DART co-investigator Andy Cheng says. “It will demonstrate the method of deflecting an asteroid by running a spacecraft into it and changing its orbit.” Cheng explains that after leaving Earth’s orbit, the spacecraft would use a long-range telescope to home in on Didymos. The craft would ultimately ram into the asteroid at a speed of roughly six kilometers per second, “which is about nine times the speed of the bullet from an AK-47.”
Didymos was chosen as a target because it’s actually a binary asteroid system — the 160-meter Didymos B orbits the 780-meter Didymos A. Striking Didymos B with DART would change its orbit around the larger body, which Cheng says could help scientists measure the effect of the deflection.
” Cheng says. “We’re not going to knock it into a dangerous orbit and show that we deflected the asteroid. Scientists are discovering more near-Earth asteroids all the time probably in the millions,” Johnson says. Of those, he estimates that about 93 percent of asteroids 1 km wide and larger have already been found. But medium-sized asteroids — the kind that DART could potentially deflect — are abundant, and based on current estimates, somewhere around 25,000,” Johnson says. So far, his program has only found about 7,700 — less than a third of the estimated total. INASA’s catalog includes more than 16,000 near-Earth asteroids of all sizes.
Detecting, tracking and characterizing near-Earth asteroids costs $35 to $40 million a year, Johnson says. “The total amount of our program this fiscal year 2017 was $60 million.” DART is a modest investment, compared to the scale of disaster it could potentially avert. If you hit a city, you’re talking many billions of dollars of damage and potentially millions of casualties,” that could be averted.” Thanks to NASA
Grand Teton National Park UFO
Robert Stiles writes, “Hello Major Filer. The craft on the current file looks remarkably like the photo I took last summer in Grand Teton National Park. They both have a round pod on bottom.”
I think my photo provides a little more detail. The craft is very small next to the insert which I enlarged.
It looks like these things are real whatever they are. I love your posts. Thank you Robert M Stiles
Evangelist Billy Graham has gone on with the Angels and UFOs
Billy Graham, the charismatic pastor who took his evangelizing crusades around the country and the globe, died on Wednesday morning at 99 years of age. Graham achieved a reach unlike any other evangelist, serving as a counselor or minister to presidents. He was buried next to his wife. The grave marker reads: “Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Evangelist Billy Graham has had a ministry for 50 years to a dozen presidents since Truman. In his bestselling book, “Angels God’s Secret Agents” Graham states, “Some reputable scientists deny and others assert that UFOs do appear to people from time to time. Some scientists have reached the place where they think they can prove that these are possibly visitors from outer space.
Some Christian writers have speculated that UFOs could very well be a part of God’s angelic host who preside over the physical affairs of universal creation. While we cannot assert such a view with certainty, many people are now seeking some type of supernatural explanation for these phenomena. Nothing can hide the fact, however, that these unexplained events are occurring with greater frequency. (Page 21)
“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels.”“His chariots of conveyance, which he sends for his friends, as he did for Elijah …his chariots of state, in the midst of which he shows his glory and power.“. “For he will give his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.” Psalm 68 & 91.
MUFON CMS Reports 548 February UFO Sightings
Santa Anna, California on Sunday, October 22, 2017
CMS continues to amass sighting reports from around the globe. In February 2018 there were 548 sightings reported to MUFON through CMS from the following countries;
United States 362,
Canada 43,
United Kingdom 42,
France 18,
Australia,11,
Germany 7,
Brazil and Ireland 5.
Peter Davenport at his National UFO Reporting Center had 212 sighting reports in February 2018
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:FILER FILES - overzicht met foto's met dank aan Georges Filer en WWW.nationalUFOCenter.com (ENG)
Filer’s Files # 10 – 2018 Planetary Defense - PART II
Filer’s Files # 10 – 2018 Planetary Defense - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Phoenix — In the recent Filer’s Files #9 under “Nevada Lights” you have a picture (attached) of three lights similar to the photo that I took in Phoenix, AR in April of 2015. The object below in my photo of the three lights, in the center of the photo, I believe, is an airplane because it moved to the right towards the airport in subsequent frames while the three lights stayed relatively in the same position all of the time. My picture was taken from a distance of about three miles from this object in Gold Canyon, so I wasn’t able to judge it’s size, but I think that it was rather large judging from the ground lights around Phoenix. Also, the three lights, I saw at times, turned into four as a light would appear and then it would soon disappear. Then there were three lights again. All of these photos are similar to the Phoenix lights, are they not? Thanks to Dan Johnson
California Object
Long Beach — My wife and I went for a bike ride to the park in the Golden East Regional Park on March 10, 2017, and stopped for a while. We turned to look at the sky and there were the objects. I took my camera and started recording. At the beginning you see how one red object passes under the other that appear to be two spheres together, after a while it changes color and the two appear white. They changed color and changed to a white sphere. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Lights
Naples— Taking photos of sunset on November 10, 2016, I didn’t notice a white disc until I was reviewing them a year later. It didn’t move that I know, but there were black spots when I zoomed in on the picture. I’m just looking for an explanation. It looked unnatural to me, and I’m always watching the sky as I live on the beach. When the sunset completely, it wasn’t visible. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Triangle
Orlando — I was at work photographing some flowering trees on February 23, 2018. I noticed a very fast moving Concord like jet with sleeker wings and no tail. I saw it for 10 seconds and turned my camera on but missed it since it was so fast. I heard no noise and saw no contrails. It was traveling northwest and disappeared in the clouds. I’m 10 miles from Orlando International Airport and this white aircraft was flying higher than commercial jets. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Kentucky Object
Lexington — On March 3, 2018, a friend and I were heading back to Louisville from the Red Mile Gaming facility at about 5:30 PM. We were heading west on Highway 64w.
The sun was starting to set, being a sky watcher I noticed this elongated looking object that appeared to be hovering (not moving), and then we saw several fast moving objects moving from South to North at almost horizon level. I was able to snap a few photos but I was unable get better shots. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Nebraska Light
North Platte— Got home and got out of my truck and saw this light hovering in the sky on March 3. 2018. It had four lights on it blinking red and to Green. It then moved around making impossible maneuvers. I recorded it on my cell phone and it flew away quickly and disappeared. A minute later it came back for two more minutes and I recorded it again. I’m hoping to get an answer to what I saw. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Objects
Mt. Laurel— After I uploaded my pictures on March 8, 2018, I noticed that one of them had round objects in it, I did not see anything while I was taking the picture…I had enlarged the picture trying to figure out what these could be, this happened between 1:15-1:30:pm. I did notice that these objects in the picture seem to be above the power lines that were down due to a snow storm that we had the day before.
New York Orb
Lake George — I found pictures of this UFO on Google Earth street view on March 3, 2018..
The picture was taken on the east side of Lake George by the radio tower near Shelvin rock . Thanks to MUFON CMS
Tennessee Object
Nashvillle— On a road trip from Louisiana with two girlfriends in the front seats while I was lying down in the back seat watching the sky pass by on October 29, 2017.
I noticed a massive object of dull, metallic grey descend slowly from the bottom of the cloud cover. I watched it for 45seconds before asking my two friends if they could see what I was seeing. They both looked out and one said, “Oh wow…that’s a UFO” I then took out my LG phone and took the pictures of it as it was ascending back into the clouds. Strangely the pictures don’t show that it was a huge rectangular object but instead show a circular disk on its side. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Wyoming Cylinder
Lander — I noticed a very interesting looking cloud bank on July 17, 2017. i was standing on a sidewalk in front of my girlfriends house. I took several zoom and regular photos my iPhone 6s plus. I did not see the object. Several weeks later I realized there was a cigar shaped UFO in the last picture. The very best part is when I was taking photos of this cloud bank It looked like a UFO disguised as a cloud. To me it appears as if this craft is docking with a mothership of sorts. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Australia Cigar
Melbourne — I got home from work on March 5, 2018, and I looked up and was stunned to see a large dark cigar object. I was shocked and ran inside to get my iPhone to film it. When I came back out it had darted to high altitude very rapidly. With my eyes I could still see the dark color and the elongated shape but in video it only shows as blinking lights. It was there for about 15 minutes. The flashing lights were random I took video of a plane to show the normal height for comparative reasons. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Brazil Lights
Santo Antônio Da Platin— I was filming several UFOs on February 3, 2018, that appear to me almost every day. That day many came and this one was the last that flew over my house. My father and I were watching the UFOs. I later realized I saw a triangular ship. (I’ve seen 5 triangular ships) who shone in front of a plane last year. I filmed this object quietly because my family and I are use to them. Thanks to MUFON CMS
India Triangle
Eattumannor Kerala — I am a Software Engineer working in Infopark Kochi which is about 95 kilometers away from my home town. I commute every day between Kochi and Tiruvalla either by bus, train or by my bike.. The incident happened on 23rd February 2018 at around 5:35 AM. I was biking to work starting at 4:15 AM and reached Eattumanoor at 5:10 AM. I met a friend near by the Ezhara Ponnana Shiva Temple and we saw a glowing light moving with a constant speed. I took a video using my HTC Phone camera and as it flew over its shape changed to a triangle. Suddenly light started dimming and it shot west.
Note: The video is grainy and doesn’t reveal much detail. The witnesses disagree on the shape that the light changed to (triangular or round). The video doesn’t reveal any shape and probably doesn’t depict what the witnesses saw. Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Mexico Light
I was shooting the night stars with my Nikon d3200 on a tripod. 1600 iso 2.5 seconds exposures.
I shot 4 frames one right after the other and when I reviewed I noticed the strange anomaly on the final frame. Photos were taken on November28, 2017. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Poland Object
Ełk — We entered a wood pulpit, as my friend took pictures. We felt strange vibrations and sounds at the same time. Suddenly, we all noticed a strange light and vibrations with the whole pulpit moving as it might blow down. My Friend said he saw the object for 10 seconds,. When the lights appeared, a friend recorded a movie. After playing it after the whole situation, the sound seemed to be very distorted. We all felt very weak while seeing this light. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Portugal Objects
Azores — I noticed a strange hole in the clouds and took some pictures since the hole in the clouds was really unusual. At the time of the photo on February 24, 2018, I didn’t see any object. Some days after, I was checking the photos and realized it had a strange dark object where the hole in the cloud is. I took several photographs, one after another, in a matter of 3 to 5 seconds, and the object only appears in one photo. I did some contrast analysis in the photo and it doesn’t resemble any normal object. Thanks to MUFON CMS
UK/England Lights
Three objects were observed on 29 January 2018 at 14:51 hours passing overhead in the direction E to W. There was an 12 mph west wind gusting at 23 mph. The objects were filmed with a full spectrum converted SLR camera fitted with a 760 mm infrared filter. No sound was noticed and the objects appeared to fly in strict formation for the four minutes I was able to observe them. They appeared to be dumbbell shaped. All three objects appeared to be identical in shape, size and did not rotate. I was able to follow until they went behind. Thanks to MUFON CMS
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As some readers of Mysterious Universe will know, one of my big interests is the Contactee/Space Brother phenomenon, which was most prominent in the 1950s. It’s a subject which is very often derided by many in Ufology (and, at times, with good reason…). But, that doesn’t take away the fact that the issue is an important one. Of those who tackled the whole controversy, certainly one of the most knowledgeable was the late Colin Bennett. He wrote what – in my opinion – remains the most important and insightful book on contactee George Adamski. The title of Colin’s book? Looking for Orthon – Orthon being the alleged name of the equally alleged alien that Adamski claimed to have met in November 1952.
Back in 2009, I interviewed Colin about his ideas on Adamski, the Space Brothers and the Contactee crowd. And, today, I thought I would share with you – and without interruption – Colin’s observations on those long-gone times of the 1950s when the Contactee movement ruled the ufological roost. Colin, who died in 2014, told me:
“Many Orthons have appeared throughout history. The equivalents to Adamski’s Venusian ‘space brother’ have appeared on mountain tops, in deserts, and have appeared to walk on water, or fly in the sky. Their sole function is to sow seeds in the head; just as a farmer grows a particular crop. These seeds act on the imagination, which replicates and amplifies whatever story-technology is around at the time. People such as Adamski and the rest of the contactees were, and still are, like psychic lightning-rods for certain brands of information. Undoubtedly, rich or poor, clever or dumb, they are possessed by a kind of higher cerebral disturbance, and like Moses, they are as prepared for the ‘visitation’ as they anxiously await for a new product brand, for the equivalent to RFID-type branding is what ‘contact’ is all about.
“Contactees are host-nutrients for whatever cultural sales lines are on offer from visions conjured up by clouds, sea or sand. The message is ‘consumed’ and thoroughly processed exactly as a viral product is absorbed. The incomprehensibility of the received stories is irrelevant. They represent a heavily codified branch of postmodern intellectual consumerism. In receiving ‘messages’ at all, Contactees are bar coded as it were, and elements of the induced story-technology are ready to crystallize out into that final alchemical stage called the mechanical real. But we must be careful here. As the alchemist said to his apprentice, ‘The game may be rigged, but it’s the only game in town.’
“Deception and all its ramifications is the key to this whole business. This does not burst the bubble of the mystery however, for manipulative levels of faction may well be our first clue as to how a possible alien mind might work. If the levels of deception of all kinds in human culture are anything to go by, the range of such within an alien culture must be both multiple and profound.
“The ‘space-folk’ are sculptured by wars between rival viral memes competing for prime-time belief. It may be that, as an independent form of non-organic life, memes as active viral information can display an Orthon entity at a drop of a hat. They come complete with sets of cultural agendas. After they have rung the doorbell as it were, and the goods are sold, these metaphysical salesmen disappear like the traditional Men in Black, no doubt traveling on to seed other dreams in other towns and other heads. The goods we have unwittingly bought are half-formed memories of having met someone from another world.
“Over a half-century later, we can no more erase the legendary Contactees from our heads than we can erase Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe. Once induced by mere transient suggestion, these powerful images become permanent fast-breeders, turning out scripts and performances in all our heads – for no-one can escape – even as we sleep. It might come as a disappointment to extraterrestrial nut-and-bolters, but as [Jacques] Vallee says in Passport to Magonia, Orthon and his brood may be a form of ‘alien’ life that has been with us for a long time. Such ethereal beings are part of the structure of that much-despised and rather unfashionable idea described by the phrase mystical experience.
“A man says he has seen a fairy being. Another man says that is impossible, because fairy beings do not exist. When we subtract the two beliefs we do not get zero as an answer. We have the thinnest of belief-tissue remaining, but perhaps mechanical quantity is irrelevant. The smallest part of an HTML address contains the whole address, rather like a fractal. These creatures, though seen and photographed, leave no trace of fights, no food swath, no blood, no sweat. They appear as partially formed displays rather then flesh and blood as we know it. As soon as we are into display we are into Media. It is somewhat chilling to think that if an Orthon or even perhaps a Jesus can appear in this manner, then so can many things else, including objects and even situations. In this it is possible that we are host-receptors of skunk-smoke from life forms not yet known to us.
“There is no doubt that Contactee claims allow access to a refreshing world which includes humor, and inspired absurdity. They allow humanity to breathe and access a Matrix world in which anything that can be imagined can happen. It might be denied by social-scientific left, but the truth is that dreams, fantasies, and mystical experiences of all kinds play an absolutely essential part in all human mental operations.
“George Adamski played a significant part in establishing New Age thinking. It might be well to remember that the entire body of our moral philosophy and spiritual life is formed by visions and inspirations. It does not come from science or technology. Those who thoughtlessly dismiss mystical experience cut themselves off from all art, literature, and no small part of all thought and philosophy. As mystics and prophets know, when desert light strikes the retina, anything that can be imagined can happen. The greatest tribute that can be paid to Adamski is that through both foul means and fair, he helped to create one of the very few routes to the unconscious that we have.”
Have you always wanted to explore space and find strange new alien worlds? Are you too lazy to leave your comfortable chair and the warm, reassuring glow of your computer screen? Google has some good news for you armchair star-ship captains out there. The machine-learning code responsible for the discovery of two exoplanets back in December has been released to the public, so you can now join the ongoing search for exoplanets and help uncover the strange secrets of our universe.
In a blog post published Thursday, March 8, senior Google software engineer Chris Shallue detailed the machine-learning code and how it can be used to help search for alien planets. To detect planets outside our solar system using tools like the Kepler space telescope, astronomers look at the light and other cosmic radiation that hits the telescope’s photometer. When there’s a conspicuous dip in an otherwise stable amount of light being detected by the telescope, there’s a chance that a planet, star, or something else may be responsible for blocking out some the light. There’s a chance, too, that it might just be instrumental noise. Once an anomaly in the signal is noticed, an algorithm makes a calculation as to the probability of an exoplanet’s existence. It’s not confirmed, however, until an astronomer manually looks through the data and can make an informed decision about what is causing the anomaly.
Because of the immense amount of data being analyzed, astronomers had to develop a way to avoid being overwhelmed by false positives caused by instrumental noise. A signal-to-noise cutoff ratio is applied to the data and any signals below the cutoff point are deemed too likely to be noise to warrant further review. While necessary, such a practice means there may be a number of actual exoplanets who’s signal was below the cutoff ratio, most likely smaller Earth-sized planets, the planets most likely to harbor alien life. That’s where Google’s code comes in.
This telescope needs your help to find weird alien planets.
Google’s code looks through the rejected Kepler signals and, like the terrifying piece of artificial intelligence it is, learns more ways to separate signal noise and actual anomalies. To test this, Google put its code to work on the data from 670 stars observed by the Kepler telescope and rejected by the automated analysis. From that formerly rejected data, Google identified two more exoplanets, Kepler-90 i and Kepler-80 g.
There is much more rejected Kepler data to sort through and Google has released its code to the public in hopes that open-sourcing it can help improve it. There is another space telescope being launched next month, too: the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will launch on April 16, 2018 for a two year mission to observe potential exoplanets. This mission also uses the transiting method of detection, and Google’s code will likely be instrumental in distinguishing noise from potential alien worlds.
This is what planet discovery looks like. Isn’t the future great?
You can find the download for the code, and instructions on how to use it, on GitHub. If the thought of a machine-learning code on your computer makes you uneasy, you can also help sort data with your eyes, the old fashioned way.
A reported encounter between U.S. Navy aircraft and UFOs has been released to the general public. The video, taken onboard a F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighter, shows a fast-moving object passing below the fighter, with an amazed aircrew watching the incident unfold. This follows the release of footage of a separate, still unexplained incident from 2004 which surfaced late last year.
The video, uploaded by the UFO investigative group To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, was secured by a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. Government. The video was taken in 2015 off the East Coast by a F/A-18F fighter jet using the aircraft’s onboard Raytheon AN/ASQ- 228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared (ATFLIR) Pod. ATFLIR is designed to allow pilots to track, target, and destroy targets on the ground at ranges of up to 40 miles. ATFLIR is also good at spotting, but not engaging, aerial targets.
The video, nicknamed GO FAST by To The Stars, starts by explaining the various numbers and symbols that appear in the footage, things like the aircraft’s altitude (25,000 feet) and the fact that the ATFLIR was pointed ahead and to the left of the Super Hornet. The readout also explains that the aircraft was traveling at 252 knots, or .61 Mach, and in a five degree turn. The object was approximately 4.4 nautical miles away.
The video shows the Super Hornet’s weapon system operator repeatedly trying to acquire the UFO with the ATFLIR’s built-in autotracker, which can pick out an object and keep it centered on camera. After two tries, the Weapon Sysems Officer (WSO) triumphantly shouts, “Whoa, got it!” to which another person, presumably the pilot says, “Woo hoo! Whoa!”
“What the ---- is that thing?” the pilot asks. The WSO later says, “Oh my gosh, dude” to which the pilot says, “Wow, what is that, man?”
There are several unusual things about this sighting. For one, the UFO does not have an hot exhaust trail typical of that emitted by any sort of conventional turbine engine. In fact, the UFO appears “cold” to the ATFLIR sensor, emitting no heat at all.
Second, the UFO doesn’t have any visible wings or fins. Even cruise missiles such as the American Tomahawk or Russian Kalibr have small winglets that should be visible, and other missiles such as the Maverick anti-tank missile have stubby fins. The UFO appears oval-like and does not appear to fly nose first in the direction of travel.
This is the second video released by To The Stars. Another video, also recorded with an Super Hornet ATFLIR pod, was taken off the coast of California in 2004 by pilots flying from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and seems to capture a similar-shaped UFO in flight. An interview with one of the pilots involved in that incident, VF-41 squadron commander Commander David Fravnor, is here.
Declassified Military Video Shows 'UFO' Off East Coast
Declassified Military Video Shows 'UFO' Off East Coast
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Contributor
A former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence said the Pentagon needs a real-life Fox Mulder.
Writing in The Washington Post, Christopher Mellon argued that the military is shrugging off its duty to investigate weird UFO encounters reported by members of the U.S. Navy and Air Force. In December, the Defense Department released two declassified videos showing pilots exclaiming over strange aircraft that seemed to accelerate rapidly with no obvious means of propulsion. The unidentified flying objects, which look like dark and light blobs on the videos, were about 40 feet (12 meters) long and could supposedly dive thousands of feet in a flash.
Mellon, now retired from government after a career in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidential administrations, is an advisor to the private firm To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a research company that aims to "bring transformative science and engineering out of the shadows." The company just released a declassified video taken from a Naval F/A-18 aircraft that appears to show a swiftly moving "anomalous aerial vehicle" off the U.S. East Coast. In the audio, the pilots express awe at the speed of the object. [Flying Saucers to Mind Control: 22 Declassified Military & CIA Secrets]
In the wake of the December New York Times story and the release of the bizarre videos, reactions were mixed. Some, like Robert Sheaffer, a writer and UFO skeptic, argued that the whole Pentagon program was the pet project of a few true believers who came up with little to show for all their efforts (and that the owner of Bigelow Aerospace was a major donor to former Sen. Harry Reid, who spearheaded the establishment of the program). Others pointed out that the chain of custody of the videos was unclear, making it possible that they'd been altered at some point.
Mellon, however, wrote that strange sightings are well-known within defense and intelligence circles but that nobody wants to be ridiculed for drawing attention to the unexplained phenomena. The craft do not have to be alien to be worthy of investigation, he wrote. They might be examples of advanced technology from foreign militaries, which would be alarming in its own right.
"A truly serious effort would involve, among other things, analysts able to review infrared satellite data, NORAD radar databases, and signals and human intelligence reporting," Mellon wrote in The Washington Post, referring to the radar databases of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The $50 billion annual intelligence budget could cover these efforts, Mellon said.
"What we lack above all," he wrote, "is recognition that this issue warrants a serious collection and analysis effort."
WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR RELIGION IF WE FIND EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE?
WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR RELIGION IF WE FIND EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE?
How will humankind react after astronomers hand over rock-solid scientific evidence for the existence of life beyond the Earth? No more speculating. No more wondering. The moment scientists announce this discovery, everything will change. Not least of all, our philosophies and religions will need to incorporate the new information.
Having already found the physical planets, astronomers are now searching for our biological neighbors. Over the next fifty years, they will begin the tantalizing, detailed study of millions of planets, looking for evidence of the presence of life on or below the surfaces or in the atmospheres of those planets.
And it’s very likely that astronomers will find it. Despite the fact that more than one-third of Americans surveyed believe that aliens have already visited Earth, the first evidence of life beyond our planet probably won’t be radio signals, little green men or flying saucers. Instead, a 21st century Galileo, using an enormous, 50-meter-diameter telescope, will collect light from the atmospheres of distant planets, looking for the signatures of biologically significant molecules.
Astronomers filter that light from far away through spectrometers – high-tech prisms that tease the light apart into its many distinct wavelengths. They’re looking for the telltale fingerprints of molecules that would not exist in abundance in these atmospheres in the absence of living things. The spectroscopic data will tell whether a planet’s environment has been altered in ways that point to biological processes at work.
If we aren’t alone, who are we?
With the discovery in a distant planet’s light spectrum of a chemical that could only be produced by living creatures, humankind will have the opportunity to read a new page in the book of knowledge. We will no longer be speculating about whether other beings exist in the universe. We will know that we not alone.
An affirmative answer to the question “Does life exist anywhere else in the universe beyond Earth?” would raise immediate and profoundly important cosmotheological questions about our place in the universe. If extraterrestrial others exist, then my religion and my religious beliefs and practices might not be universal. If my religion is not universally applicable to all extraterrestrial others, perhaps my religion need not be offered to, let alone forced on, all terrestrial others. Ultimately, we might learn some important lessons applicable here at home just from considering the possibility of life beyond our planet.
In my book, I investigated the sacred writings of the world’s most widely practiced religions, asking what each religion has to say about the uniqueness or non-uniqueness of life on Earth, and how, or if, a particular religion would work on other planets in distant parts of the universe.
Extrasolar sinners?
Let’s examine a seemingly simple yet exceedingly complex theological question: could extraterrestrials be Christians? If Jesus died in order to redeem humanity from the state of sin into which humans are born, does the death and resurrection of Jesus, on Earth, also redeem other sentient beings from a similar state of sin? If so, why are the extraterrestrials sinful? Is sin built into the very fabric of the space and time of the universe? Or can life exist in parts of the universe without being in a state of sin and therefore without the need of redemption and thus without the need for Christianity? Many different solutions to these puzzles involving Christian theology have been put forward. None of them yet satisfy all Christians.
Mormon worlds
Mormon scripture clearly teaches that other inhabited worlds exist and that “the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (Doctrines and Covenants 76:24). The Earth, however, is a favored world in Mormonism, because Jesus, as understood by Mormons, lived and was resurrected only on Earth. In addition, Mormon so-called intelligences can only achieve their own spiritual goals during their lives on Earth, not during lifetimes on other worlds. Thus, for Mormons, the Earth might not be the physical center of the universe but it is the most favored place in the universe. Such a view implies that all other worlds are, somehow, lesser worlds than Earth.
Bahá’í without bias
Members of the Bahá’í Faith have a view of the universe that has no bias for or against the Earth as a special place or for against humans as a special sentient species. The principles of the Bahá’í Faith – unifying society, abandoning prejudice, equalizing opportunities for all people, eliminating poverty – are about humans on Earth. The Bahá’í faithful would expect any creatures anywhere in the universe to worship the same God as do humans, but to do so according to their own, world-specific ways.
Light years from Mecca
The pillars of the faith for Muslims require the faithful to pray five times every day while facing Mecca. Because determining the direction of Mecca correctly could be extremely difficult on a quickly spinning planet millions of light years from Earth, practicing the same faith on another world might not make any sense. Yet the words of the Qu’ran tell us that “Whatever beings there are in the heavens and the earth do prostrate themselves to Allah” (13:15). Can terrestrial Muslims accept that the prophetically revealed religion of Muhammad is intended only for humans on earth and that other worlds would have their own prophets?
Astronomers as paradigm-shatterers
At certain moments throughout history, astronomers’ discoveries have exerted an outsized influence on human culture. Ancient Greek astronomers unflattened the Earth – though many then chose to forget this knowledge. Renaissance scholars Copernicus and Galileo put the Earth in motion around the Sun and moved humans away from the center of the universe. In the 20th century, Edwin Hubble eliminated the very idea that the universe has any center at all. He demonstrated that what the universe has is a beginning in time and that, bizarrely, the universe, the very fabric of three-dimensional space, is expanding.
Clearly, when astronomers offer the world bold new ideas, they don’t mess around. Another such paradigm-shattering new idea may be in the light arriving at our telescopes now.
No matter which (a)theistic background informs your theology, you may have to wrestle with the data astronomers will be bringing to houses of worship in the very near future. You will need to ask: Is my God the God of the entire universe? Is my religion a terrestrial or a universal religion? As people work to reconcile the discovery of extrasolar life with their theological and philosophical worldviews, adapting to the news of life beyond Earth will be discomfiting and perhaps even disruptive.
If your browser or smart phone is set up to view it, this 360 video will let you virtually explore a Mars simulation facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where engineers are practicing for an upcoming Mars lander mission.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory posted this 360 video on March 8, 2018. If you’re able to view it, the video will let you virtually explore a Mars simulation facility – the In-Situ Instrument Lab – located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The lab is being used by engineers to practice operating NASA’s InSight lander, scheduled for launch in May 2018. The voice you hear is engineer Marleen Martinez Sundgaard. To explore, just set your cursor on the video, and move it around.
They use this testbed to simulate all the functions of the spacecraft, preparing for any scenario it might meet once it touches down on the Red Planet.
InSight is unique in that it’s a lander rather than a rover; once it touches down, it can’t reposition itself. Its job is to stay very still and collect high-precision data. JPL’s testbed for the lander sits on piles of crushed garnet … This garnet simulates a mix of sand and gravel found on the Martian surface but has the benefit of being dust-free. The testbed’s legs are raised or lowered to test operations in an uneven landing area with up to 15 degrees of tilt.
Engineers also pile garnet at different tilts in the testbed’s “workspace” – the area in front of the lander where it practices setting down three science tools: an ultra-sensitive seismometer; a shield that isolates the seismometer from wind and temperature swings; and a heat-flow probe. These three objects are formally called the Science Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS); the Wind and Thermal Shield (WTS); and the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3).
All this practice ensures InSight can set these objects down safely no matter what surprises its landing site has in store.
InSight will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. The launch window opens on May 5. Insight is scheduled to land on Mars in November 2018.
Artist’s concept of Mars Insight launch. InSight is scheduled to launch under pre-dawn skies from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central coast of California in May 2018. The mission’s launch period is May 5 through June 8, with daily launch windows that last 2 hours per day. Launch opportunities are set five minutes apart during each date’s launch window. The first opportunity begins at approximately 4 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on May 5. InSight will launch from Launch Complex 3 and ride atop an Atlas V-401 rocket.
The First Manned Interplanetary Spaceship Will Be Ready In 2019
The First Manned Interplanetary Spaceship Will Be Ready In 2019
Elon Musk, the man behind Tesla and SpaceX, has said in a surprise question and answer session at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas that the first interplanetary spaceships—for Mars—will be ready by 2019.
Musk commented how it was imperative to create colonies on the Moon and on Mars, and how these colonies could help preserve the human civilization and accelerate its regeneration on Earth in the event of a ThirdWorldWar, or a different apocalypse that may strike Earth.
“We are building the first Mar or interplanetary ship, and I think well be able to do short trips, short up and down flights, by the first half of next year,” Musk responded Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan, who was moderating the talk.
Despite this, the Musk 46, said that his deadline might be too optimistic;
“Although sometimes, my timelines are a little, you know…”
It’s time to take Mars.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
In 2017, Elon Musk announced that exciting times are approaching and that SpaceX was working to send a cargo mission to the surface of the red planet by 2022, which will help future Martian colonists settle down on Mars.
Stepping up the game
“I think once we build it we’ll have a point of proof something that other companies and countries can go and do. They certainly don’t think it’s possible, but if we do they’ll up their game,” said Musk.
When someone asked Musk how ordinary people can help his mission to reach Mars, he said that at this time it is about general support and encouragement.
A HiRISE image from Mars’ surface.
Image Credit: NASA
“I think that once we build it, we will have a test point of something that other companies and countries can do. They certainly do not think it’s possible, but if we do, they will improve their action.”
The futuristic tycoon said that a flight on the BFR rocket (Big Fucking Rocket) – designed specifically for this mission – will actually cost less than the initial flights of Falcon 1, which were between 5 and 6 million dollars. Still, he admitted that the first humans who dare to make the trip would risk a lot: “It will be much more dangerous, difficult, dangerous, with a good chance that you will die.”
Image Credit: SpaceX
However, the positive sides outweigh the negative things.
“I think mars should have great bars… Mars bars,” Musk joked.
Musk explained that the bases on the Moon and Mars could help preserve human civilization and accelerate its regeneration on Earth in the event of a ThirdWorldWar.
“There is likely to be another darkage (…) particularly if there is a third world war,” Musk stressed, arguing that in such a case “a Martian colony will carry forward the torch of human culture.”
Gene Inherited From An Extinct Species Of Humans Helps Tibetans Thrive At High Altitudes
Gene Inherited From An Extinct Species Of Humans Helps Tibetans Thrive At High Altitudes
Among all the physical characteristics, there is one in particular that distinguishes Tibetans from the rest of the humans on the surface of the planet.
The Tibetans have an extraordinary ability to live without problems in the highest mountains, where most of us could not. Extreme altitudes do not pose an issue for them.
The reason for this unique adaptation resides in a gene, transmitted to their ancestors when they crossed with another human species to whose extinction, paradoxically, the Tibetansalso contributed.
That gene was identified by a group of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, who publish their findings in Nature.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
The Super Human Gene
A rare variant of a gene related to the production of hemoglobin(the molecule responsible for transporting oxygen in the bloodstream) spread among Tibetans after they moved, several thousand years ago, to the high plateaus they currently occupy.
And it is precisely this genetic variant that has allowed them, and allows them even today, to survive despite the low levels of oxygen that are present at altitudes of 5,000 meters above sea level, where most people would have serious health issues.
“We have very clear evidence that this version of the gene came from Denisovans,” said principalauthor RasmusNielsen, UC Berkeleyprofessor of integrativebiology.
“This shows that humans evolved and adapted to new environments by obtaining their genes from another species.”
We've known for a while that our ancestors live alongside and mated with other species of humans. But a recent study suggests genes inherited from this interspecies mating are why Tibetans do well at high altitudes.
The Gene, called EPAS1boostshemoglobin and redbloodcellproduction only slightly, avoiding the negative cardiovascular effects seen by those with other variants of the gene that causes thicker blood.
“We found that part of the EPAS1 gene in Tibetans is nearly identical to the gene found in ancient Denisovans and very different from all other humans,” Nielsen said.
“We can do a statistical analysis to demonstrate that this gene must have originated from the Denisovans. There is no other way of explaining the data.”
This mystery gene was discovered in 87percent of Tibetans who were tested in the study.
A Tibetan Buddhist monastery located near Kaza City in the Spiti valley region of Himachal Pradesh, India.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
On the Tibetan plateau, oxygen levels are about 40 percent lower than at sea level.
“There may be many other species from which we also obtained today’s DNA, but we don’t know it because we don’t have the necessary genomes,”Nielsen said.
“The only reason we can say that this bit of DNA is Denisovan is because of this lucky accident of sequencing DNA from a little bone found in a cave in Siberia. We found the Denisovan species at the DNA level, but how many other species are out there that we haven’t sequenced?
Russian Scientist Claims ‘Mummified Creatures’ With Elongated Skulls Found In Peru Are Aliens
Russian Scientist Claims ‘Mummified Creatures’ With Elongated Skulls Found In Peru Are Aliens
“They appear human, but they are not. Their anatomic structure is different.”
Despite the fact that the alleged mummified remains of ‘an unknown species’ discovered in Peru have been dismissed by mainstream scientists as a hoax, a number of researchers believe that the ‘three-fingered’ mummies with elongated skulls, found in Peru in 2017 are real alien remains.
The Russian scientist claims to have performed DNA tests on one of the mummies, providing evidence they are not human.
The ‘expert,’ Dr. Konstantin Korotkov, professor of Computer Science and Biophysics at Saint-Petersburg Federal University firmly believes the mummies are in fact the mummified remains of ancient ‘aliens.’
However, Professor Korotkov is known for extraordinary claims. The researcher was widely criticized after claiming to have invented a device that has the capability to ‘photograph’ the human soil in 2008.
One of the alleged mummies from Peru, called Maria, was found by a group of experts led by one of the most famous Ufologists and paranormal authors of America, Jaime Maussan.
According to preliminary tests, Maria, the Peruvian mummy discovered in a tomb near the Nazca Lines lived during the fifth century AD.
Poting towards the strange shape of the skulls as well as elongated fingers, researchers were convinced they had found a species unlike any other on Earth.
Interestingly, back in 2017 when Jaime Maussan and his team discovered the weird mummies, Dr. Korotkov of Saint-Petersburg University said that the features were not a deformity and that the discovery was actually ‘another creature, another humanoid.’
Nearly a year later, Dr. Korotkov says he has performed genetic tests on a set of tissue samples from the mummies, reports Russian News Agency Sputnik.
Genetic tests have shown that Maria “is a humanoid being, meaning that she also has 23 chromosomes like us.”
X-rays images of the alleged mummified remains.
Image credit: YouTube
“Right now, we are performing a detailed analysis to see if the shape of the position of all the chromosomes, of all the amino acids, coincides with ours,” Konstantin Korotkov, said speaking to Sputnik.
However, experts note that the rib structure of the Peruvian mummy greatly differs from that of an ordinary human.
“We see the contours of the trachea and the bronchi, of the heart and its chambers; we can even see the shape of the valves. We can also see quite clearly the contours of the diaphragm, the liver, and the spleen,” radiologist Natalia Zaloznaya said.
Researchers have also found what the mysterious ‘white’ substance covering the mummies was. According to reports, the ‘alien mummies’ were covered with cadmium chloride – a chemical whose antibacterial effect has kept Maria and the other mummies so well preserved.
And despite the fact that the mummies look eerily similar to humans, they are anything but that.
As noted by Dr. Korotkov, “Each of the mummies has two arms, two legs, a head, a pair of eyes and a mouth. Tomographic scans have revealed their skeletons. The tissue is biological in nature, and their chemical composition indicates that they are humans. Their DNA features 23 pairs of chromosomes, just like humans have. All the four of them are males, each with a Y-chromosome. And despite the fact that they appear human, they are not. Their anatomic structure is very different.”
During Dr. Korotkov’s visit to Peru, the Russian researcher was shown four more mummies, 70 centimeters each.
Dr. Korotkov says that the mystery 70CM mummies all have three fingers and an extremely elongated skull. The mummies have another mysterious characteristic according to Korotkov; their Nasal cavity is missing, and their superciliary arches are not pronounced.
“Most surprisingly, the mouth cavities are there, but the lower jaws are not flexible and present a single whole with the rest of the skull, said Kortovov speaking to Sputnik.
When asked about what the mysterious beings could be, the Russian expert answered:
“They could be extraterrestrials or bio-robots,” he added. “As for the 70cm creatures I’m not sure, but Maria and Vavita could have been representatives of a certain race which had possibly reached a stage of advancement much earlier than we did. Maybe thousands of years earlier.”
“By the way, three-fingered creatures can be seen on petroglyphic drawings found in Peru,” Korotkov added, suggesting that ancient inhabitants of Peru may have seen these strange beings alive.
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Electromagnetic signals (blue circles) from alien civilizations will continue traveling through the Milky Way even after the aliens are gone. The appearance of a doughnut hole represents when a civilization dies out.
GEOFF MARC
If signals from an alien civilization ever reach Earth, odds are the aliens will already be dead.
In an effort to update the 1961 Drake Equation, which estimates the number of detectable, intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way, physicist Claudio Grimaldi and colleagues calculated the area of the galaxy that should be filled with alien signals at a given time (SN Online: 11/1/09).
The team, which includes Frank Drake (now a professor emeritus at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., and the University of California, Santa Cruz), assumed technologically savvy civilizations are born and die at a constant rate. When a civilization dies out and stops broadcasting, the signals it had sent continue traveling like concentric ripples on a pond. Part of the Milky Way should be filled with these ghost signals.
If the civilization lasted less than 100,000 years — the time it takes light to cross the galaxy — then the odds of the signals reaching Earth while the civilization is still broadcasting are vanishingly small, the researchers report February 27 at arXiv.org. Humans, for example, have been transmitting radio waves for only about 80 years, so our radio waves cover less than 0.001 percent of the Milky Way.
“If the civilization emitted from the other side of the galaxy, when the signal arrives here, the civilization will already be gone,” says Grimaldi, of the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Surprisingly, the team also calculated that the average number of E.T. signals crossing Earth at a given time should equal the number of civilizations currently transmitting — even if the civilizations we hear from aren’t the same ones presently broadcasting. Grimaldi is now working on a paper about what it means that we’ve found none so far.
Have Astronomers Found A ‘Second Earth’? Potentially Habitable Super Planet Discovered
Have Astronomers Found A ‘Second Earth’? Potentially Habitable Super Planet Discovered
Japanese scientists have found 15 new planets— including a “Super Earth” –that orbit small, cold stars known as red dwarfs.
Among the recently discovered alien world, experts have found a planet dubbed as K2-155d, which is 1.6 times the size of our planet and orbits its star in the so-called Habitable Zone, some 200 light years away.
The finding was made by astronomers led by Teruyuki Hirano of Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
This discovery proofs that red dwarfs are a good bet when looking for potentially habitable planets.
In the past, astronomers avoided searching for alien life and Earth-like planets around red dwarfs because habitable zones around these stars are small. Astronomers were convinced that any worlds orbiting red dwarfs would be so close to the stars that one side would constantly face the star, which could make one planet’s extremely hot while the other side would be freezing cold and dark, meaning that life would have to develop under extremely difficult conditions.
Three-dimensional global climate simulations captured by data from NASA’s Kepler probe indicate that the surface of that super-earth could host water.
However, to affirm with certainty that this alien world is habitable, astronomers will have to make a more accurate estimate of the radius and temperature of K2-155.
The outermost planet has a radius 1.6 times that of Earth and could be located within the host star’s habitable zone. Based on climate simulations, astronomers conclude that planet K2-155d could host liquid water on its surface (artist’s impression).
“In our simulations, the atmosphere and the composition of the planet were assumed to be Earth-like, and there’s no guarantee that this is the case,” said Dr. Hirano.
Even if we do find that there’s liquid water on the surface of the planet, reaching it with today’s technology is impossible.
However, future generations of super-fast spacecraft could allow tomorrow’s astronomers to visit the planet without issues.
As of now, the fastest spacecraft conceived b mas is the New horizons prove, traveling at staggering 51,500 kilometers per hour.
With this speed, it would take 4 million years for New Horizons to reach K2-155d.
Scientists say that Red Dwarfs are the most common type of stars in our galaxy.
These small and relatively cool stars are often not observed due to their luminosity, and from Earth, not a single Red Dwarf is visible to the naked eye.
The nearest Red Dwarf to earth is Proxima Centauri.
“It’s important to note that the number of planets around red dwarfs is much smaller than the number around solar-type stars,’ said Dr Hirano. Red dwarf systems, especially coolest red dwarfs, are just beginning to be investigated, so they are very exciting targets for future exoplanet research.”
Dr. Hirano, as well as other astronomers around the globe, look forward to the launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) in April 2018 which will hopefully prove a good tool for astronomers allowing them to spot many more potentially habitable planets in our galaxy.
“TESS is expected to find many candidate planets around bright stars closer to Earth,’ said Dr. Hirano. This will greatly facilitate follow-up observations, including investigation of planetary atmospheres and determining the precise orbit of the planets.”
Today's "Planet Earth Report" --'The U.S. Military Keeps Reporting UFOs. What's Going On?'
Today's "Planet Earth Report" --'The U.S. Military Keeps Reporting UFOs. What's Going On?'
We have no idea what’s behind these weird incidents because we’re not investigating. As with Sputnik, the national security implications of these incidents are concerning — but the scientific opportunities are thrilling. Who knows what perils we may avoid or opportunities we might identify if we follow the data? We cannot afford to avert our eyes, given the risk of strategic surprise. The future belongs to not only the physically brave but also the intellectually agile.
In December, reports Christopher Mellon in today's The Washington Post, the Defense Department declassified two videos documenting encounters between U.S. Navy F-18 fighters and unidentified aircraft. Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administration.
The images and video below is from a recently declassified Defense Department video captured by an F/A-18 military jet of an unidentified flying object moving at high speed.
The first video captures multiple pilots observing and discussing a strange, hovering, egg-shaped craft, apparently one of a “fleet” of such objects, according to cockpit audio. The second shows a similar incident involving an F-18 attached to the USS Nimitz carrier battle group in 2004.
The video, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest .
Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization.
Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"I know from numerous discussions with Pentagon officials over the past two years," he writes, "that military departments and agencies treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation. A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of 'anomalous' aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data."
Mystery of Three-Fingered Peruvian Mummies: ETs or Humans?
Mystery of Three-Fingered Peruvian Mummies: ETs or Humans?
A team of St. Petersburg geneticists have brought tissue samples of the alien creature with an elongated skull and only three fingers and toes, to Russia to try to break its genome.
The mysterious mummy was found in a tomb near the Nazca Lines in southern Peru in early-2017.
According to preliminary analysis, the mummy, named Maria, found in a tomb near the Nazca Lines in southern Peru, dates back to about 5th century A.D., about a millennium before the discovery of America.
The analysis also found that Maria “is a humanoid being, meaning that she also has 23 chromosomes like us.”
“Right now we are making a detailed analysis to see if the shape of the position of all the chromosomes, of all the amino acids, coincides with ours,” Russian National Research University professor Konstantin Korotkov, said.
The mummy’s rib structure is very different from that of a human being. Keel-shaped in its upper part, the rib cage consists of a handful of semicircular ribs. Its unusual shape has helped scientists carefully study the mummy’s internal organs.
"We clearly see the contours of the trachea and the bronchi, of the heart and its chambers; we can even see the shape of the valves. We can also see quite clearly the contours of the diaphragm, the liver and the spleen," radiologist Natalia Zaloznaya said.
The scientists have even managed to find out that the white powder the alien civilization used to mummify their dead is cadmium chloride – a chemical whose antibacterial effect has kept Maria preserved.
All set to break the mysterious creature’s DNA code, the Russian scientists plan to work closely with their Peruvian colleagues. They even want to seek permission to bring the mummy to St. Petersburg.
Mummy’s Daughter and Tiny “Verdants”
Besides Maria, the St. Petersburg scientists have also been analyzing the genome of another mummy found in Peru. While Maria was an adult woman, the other one – Vavita – was nine months old when she died. The researchers think that the two could have been mother and child.
Konstantin Korotkov said that his Peruvian colleagues had shown him four more mummies, 70 centimeters each, whom they called “Verdants.” For some strange reason, one carbon dating analysis made in the US said that they were 6,500 years old, while another said they died about 4,000 years ago.
“Each of the little mummies has two arms, two legs, a head, a pair of eyes and a mouth. Tomographic scans reveal their skeletons. The tissue has biological nature and their chemical composition indicates that they are humans. Their DNA features 23 pairs of chromosomes, just like we have. All the four of them are males, each with a Y-chromosome. They appear human but they are not. Their anatomic structure is different,” Korotkov explained.
He added that the 70cm males have three fingers and their skulls are elongated at the back of the head. The nasal cavity is missing and superciliary arches are not pronounced.
“Most surprisingly, the mouth cavities are there but the lower jaws are not flexible and present a single whole with the rest of the skull.
When asked who these “little men” really were, Korotkov said it was hard to tell.
“They could be extraterrestrials or bio robots,” he added. “As for the 70cm creatures I’m not sure, but Maria and Vavita could have been representatives of a certain race which had possibly reached a stage of advancement much earlier than we did. Maybe thousands of years earlier.”
He added that all these members of that advanced race had probably perished as a result of either some great flood or from a comet hit.
"A handful of those who survived met savage tribes of prehistoric men and taught them handicrafts and farming. They mated with local women. They were three-fingered and this genetic feature could make itself evident in future generations,” Korotkov continued.
He didn’t rule out that they could have live separately from the rest and reproduced with one another resulting in genetic degeneration, such as the three unnaturally long fingers.
“By the way, three-fingered creatures can be seen on petroglyphic drawings found in Peru,” Korotkov noted.
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Zijn de drievingerige gemummificeerde wezens uit Peru aliens? Deze Russische professor denkt van wel
Zijn de drievingerige gemummificeerde wezens uit Peru aliens? Deze Russische professor denkt van wel
Uit DNA-onderzoek is gebleken dat de vreemde mummies die vorig jaar in Peru zijn gevonden, niet menselijk zijn. Dat beweert althans professor Konstantin Korotkov van de ITMO University in Sint-Petersburg.
Eén van de mummies, genaamd Maria, werd begin 2017 ontdekt door een team onder leiding van de Mexicaanse journalist Jaime Maussan.
In een korte documentaire over de ontdekking vestigde de groep de aandacht op de vreemd gevormde schedel en lange vingers.
Ander wezen
Dr. Korotkov zei indertijd dat het geen vervormingen waren, maar dat we hier te maken hebben met een ‘ander wezen, een andere humanoïde’.
Het team van Korotkov heeft naar eigen zeggen genetisch onderzoek gedaan naar weefsel dat uit de mummies is gehaald.
Ook een tweede mummie, genaamd Vavita, is onderzocht, meldt het Russische persbureau Sputnik.
Buitenaardsen of cyborgs
Dr. Korotkov zei dat de lichamen dateren van de vijfde eeuw na Christus en van buitenaardsen of cyborgs kunnen zijn.
“Ze zien eruit als mensen, maar dat zijn het niet,” zei hij. “Hun anatomische structuur is anders.”
De wetenschapper voegde toe dat de structuur van de ribben anders is dan die van mensen, aangezien de botten in het bovenste gedeelte kielvormig zijn.
Eerder
Door de ongewone vorm van de ribbenkast konden onderzoekers de organen tot in detail bestuderen.
“Maria en Vavita behoorden mogelijk toe aan een ras dat al veel eerder dan wij een bepaald ontwikkelingsstadium heeft bereikt,” aldus Korotkov. “Misschien wel duizenden jaren eerder.”
Rotstekeningen
Hij denkt dat het ras grotendeels is uitgeroeid als gevolg van een zondvloed of een komeet.
Korotkov merkte op dat dit soort drievingerige wezens ook op rotstekeningen in Peru zijn gezien.
Zojuist is de helderste mysterieuze radioflits uit de ruimte waargenomen. Astronomen staan voor raadsel
Zojuist is de helderste mysterieuze radioflits uit de ruimte waargenomen. Astronomen staan voor raadsel
Wetenschappers hebben drie nieuwe snelle radioflitsen opgepikt uit de ruimte. Eén daarvan is de helderste die ooit is waargenomen.
Snelle radioflitsen zijn buitengewoon lastig waar te nemen in het heelal. Het zijn krachtige radiogolven die al na enkele milliseconden weer verdwijnen. Niemand weet hoe ze ontstaan.
Sommige theorieën hebben betrekking op neutronensterren en uitbarstingen, terwijl er ook een theorie is die stelt dat ze worden geproduceerd door buitenaardsen die interstellaire reizen maken.
Uitsluiten
“Dat zou natuurlijk prachtig zijn, maar we moeten eerst alle plausibele theorieën uitsluiten,” zei astronoom Danny Price van de Universiteit van Californië – Berkeley.
“Er zijn voor zover bekend geen astronomische bronnen die zulke heldere radioflitsen genereren,” zei professor Avi Loeb van Hardvard.
“Radioflitsen zijn bijvoorbeeld tientallen miljarden keer helderder dan pulsars,” voegde hij toe.
Nieuwe
Tot dusver zijn er nog maar 33 van deze radioflitsen ontdekt. Onderzoekers hebben nu een paar nieuwe gespot.
Eén van de nieuwe flitsen, FRB 180301, is op 1 maart jongstleden opgepikt door de Parkes-telescoop in Australië.
Eerste
Het is de eerste radioflits die is ontdekt door een team van Breakthrough Listen, een organisatie die speurt naar intelligent leven buiten de aarde.
“Tijdens onze waarnemingen op 1 maart hebben we een mysterieus fenomeen waargenomen dat bekendstaat als een snelle radioflits,” lichtte dr. Price toe.
“A German newspaper recently published an interview with George Klein, famous German engineer and aircraft expert, describing the experimental construction of ‘flying saucers’ carried out by him from 1941 to 1945.”(source)
Exotic technology has been around for a long time, and so have the agencies within the Department of Defense that use it. Just imagine what type of technology the NSA — an intelligence agency whose existence was denied until the mid-1960s — was using in the 1950s. Then there’s the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for 30 years. Secret technologies have been wrapped up in the Black Budget and Special Access Programs (SAPs) for years, and many of these SAPS remain unacknowledged by anybody within the government. They’re exempt from standard reporting requirements to Congress.
“It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction, when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy, when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects about which both the Congress and the Commander in Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.”
When it comes to exotic aerial technology, there is no shortage of information. For examine, in the mid-1920s, Townsend Brown discovered that gravitational mass and electric charge are coupled. He found that when a capacitor is charged to a high voltage, it moves toward its positive pole. This became known as the “Biefeld-Brown” effect, which, like many new concepts today that challenge longheld belief systems (that then become scientific dogma), was opposed by conventional-minded physicists of his time.
As Theodore C. Loder, a Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, states:
The Pearl Harbor Demonstration. Around 1953, Brown conducted a demonstration for military top brass. He flew a pair of 3-foot diameter discs around a 50-foot course tethered to a central pole. Energized with 150,000 volts and emitting ions from their leading edge, they attained speeds of several hundred miles per hour. The subject was thereafter classified. Project Winterhaven. Brown submitted a proposal to the Pentagon for the development of a Mach 3 disc shaped electrogravitic fighter craft. Drawings of its basic design are shown in one of his patents. They are essentially large-scale versions of his tethered test discs.
German Flying Saucers
Here is an authentic image/story of a large UFO hovering over L.A., which was witnessed by 1 million people. Dubbed the “Battle of Los Angeles,” it was an event that showed us how the U.S. military was learning to lie about UFOs, five years prior to the Roswell Incident.
During World War Two, multiple strange sightings occurred, of disc-shaped objects travelling at incomprehensible speeds. When the Associated Press and New York Times covered the topic in 1945, they speculated the objects might be a new form of German weaponry.
There is no shortage of strange documents in the CIA’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) electronic reading room. Many reveal the agency’s efforts to keep tabs on the technological developments of other countries, especially during and after World War II.
One document brings up a famous German engineer named Georg Klein, who, as the document states, expressed that “though many people believe the ‘flying saucers’ to be a postwar development, they were actually in the planning stage in German aircraft factories as early as 1941.”
The document then goes on to mention an experiment described by Klein:
“The “flying saucer” reached an altitude of 12,400 meters within 3 minutes and a speed of 2,200 kilometers per hour. Klein emphasized that in accordance with German plans, the speed of these “saucers” would reach 4,000 kilometers per hour. One difficulty, according to Klein, was the problem of obtaining the materials to be used for the construction of the “saucers,” but even this had been solved by German engineers toward the end of 1945, and construction on the objects was scheduled to begin, Klein added.
Three Different Models
According to Klein, by 1944 the Germans had already built three saucers for testing. Were these the “foo” fighters all of these American pilots were reporting? The document describes the three disks:
One type actually had the shape of a disc, with an interior cabin, and was built at the (unidentified) factories, which had also built the V2 rockets. This model was 42 meters in diameter. The other model had the shape of a ring, with raised sides and a spherically shaped pilot’s cabin placed on the outside, in the center of the ring . . . [and] both models had the ability to take off vertically and to land in an extremely restricted area, like helicopters.
The engineers were ordered to destroy these saucers, including all of the plans for them. “The engineers at the Mite factories in Breslau, however, were not warned in sufficient time of the Soviet approach, and the Soviets, therefore, succeeded in seizing their material. Plans, as well as specialized personnel, were immediately sent directly to the Soviet Union under heavy guard.”
German Saucer Technology Has Been in the Lore for a Long Time
Aviation writer Nick Cook is one of many to have investigated this topic, and in 2002 he came to the conclusion that the Nazis had experimented “with a form of science the rest of the world had never remotely considered” and which continues to be suppressed today.
It makes you wonder what the United States received given that, through Operation Paperclip, a number of top German scientists were transported to the United States.
“[Italian researcher] Renato Vesco argued that Germans had developed antigravity. Disc-shaped and tubular craft were built and tested near the end of the Second World War, which, he argued, was the proper explanation of foo fighters. These concepts, he maintained, were developed by the Americans and Soviets and led directly to flying saucers.”
Another researcher Joseph P, Farrell, a professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of California, Berkely, believes that some of the Nazi’s developments were
A means to tap into zero-point energy, or to phrase it differently, the energy of the physical medium of space-time itself
As a means to manipulate gravity itself, i.e. as an advanced prototypical field propulsion technology; and,
As a means to the ultimate, potentially planet-busting, weapons
Former head of the CIA Roscoe Hilenkoetter put it best in 1960 when he told the nation that “behind the scenes, high ranking air force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.” (source)
“Oh yes we discuss it at every conference that we had with the military, and they never were able to make me a concrete report on it. . . . There’s always things like that going on, flying saucers and they’ve had other things, you know.”
I’ve been researching the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon for more than two decades now, and the more I do, the more I realize just how little I know, and how much information is out there that I have yet to examine. What I have learned, from documents like the one above, is that many of these crafts are most likely manmade, by our own agencies.
That being said, although UFOs are now officially verified, this wasn’t so just a few years ago. Just as there was evidence for the UFO phenomenon when it was ridiculed, so too does the extraterrestrial hypothesis have plenty of evidence to back it up, despite not being accepted by the mainstream yet.
I’ve covered why I believe so in many of my articles, most of which you can find in the exopolitics section of our website.
I’ll leave you with a couple of my favourite quotes.
“It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our Earth for centuries.”
– Hermann Oberth , the founding father of rocketry and astronautics
There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time.”
– Dr. Brian O’Leary, former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor (source)
Geavanceerde (mogelijk buitenaardse) technologie van de nazi’s. Dit CIA-document werpt licht op de zaak
Geavanceerde (mogelijk buitenaardse) technologie van de nazi’s. Dit CIA-document werpt licht op de zaak
Onlangs gaf de CIA een groot aantal documenten vrij, waaruit onder meer is gebleken dat de spionagedienst krantenberichten over vliegende schotels in het buitenland nauwgezet volgde.
Eén van de stukken gaat over een Duitse ingenieur, die claimde dat de Sovjets Duitse experts op het gebied van vliegende schotels aan het werk hadden gezet.
Daarnaast bleek volgens de CIA uit berichten uit Toronto dat de Canadese luchtmacht aan een ‘vliegende schotel’ werkte die in toekomstige oorlogen zou worden gebruikt.
Diepste geheim
Ingenieurs van de luchtmacht werkten in fabrieken van A.B. Roe in het diepste geheim aan de vliegende schotel.
Tegen het einde van de Tweede Wereldoorlog werden in Duitsland bouwtekeningen voor vliegende schotels gevonden.
De Duitse ingenieur Georg Klein stelde volgens de CIA dat er in 1941 al in Duitse vliegtuigfabrieken werd gewerkt aan vliegende schotels.
Eerste testvlucht
Klein, die zei dat hij werkzaam was voor het ministerie van Albert Speer, was op 14 februari 1945 in Praag om de eerste testvlucht van een vliegende schotel te aanschouwen.
Tijdens het experiment bereikte het vaartuig binnen drie minuten een hoogte van 12.400 meter en een snelheid van 2200 kilometer per uur.
De topsnelheid van de schotels bedroeg volgens de ingenieur 4000 kilometer per uur.
Zware bewaking
Hij legde uit dat eind 1944 drie verschillende prototypes klaar waren om te worden getest. Eén type had de vorm van een schijf en was gebouwd in de fabriek waar ook de V2-raketten werden gemaakt.
De CIA merkt op dat de Sovjets in Wroclaw de hand hadden weten te leggen op de plannen.
Mensen die aan de schotels werkten werden gelijk onder zware bewaking overgebracht naar de Sovjet-Unie.
Syrië
In Frans-Equatoriaal-Afrika werden op 22 november 1952 vier vliegende schotels gezien. Een priester genaamd Carlos Maria zag die avond vier grote schijven roerloos in lucht hangen.
“Ze hadden een zilverachtige kleur zoals de maan,” zei de priester. “Vlak voordat ze alle vier begonnen te bewegen lichtten ze op als zonnen.”
De CIA wijst daarnaast op een bericht dat op 19 mei 1953 in de Syrische krant Al Ahaya verscheen en waarin wordt gesteld dat er vliegende schotels waren gezien boven de stad Homs.
Iran
De objecten kwamen volgens de krant vanuit het zuiden.
Een dag daarvoor, op 18 mei 1953, werd een oplichtend object gezien in de lucht boven de Iraanse stad Abadan.
Het object ‘was net zo fel als de zon en had de vorm van een nieuwe maan’. Hetzelfde object werd gezien boven de olievelden in Khuzestan, aldus de krant.
TAXI IN HONG KONG OVERVAKKEN DOOR BOVENNATUURLIJK " IETS " ( VIDEO )
TAXI IN HONG KONG OVERVAKKEN DOOR BOVENNATUURLIJK " IETS " ( VIDEO )
Er gaan op dit moment beelden viraal van een taxi in Hong Kong die 's avonds in het donker rijdt als er plotsklaps "iets" opduikt.
Dat "iets" lijkt op een soort mist die de auto lijkt aan te vallen, waarna deze dan ook prompt van de weg raakt.
Er zijn van die dingen die ineens viraal gaan en het onderstaande verhaal is daar een dergelijk voorbeeld van.
Hong Leung uit Hong Kong reed in zijn auto op een avond achter een taxi door bochtige straten van Hong Kong. Hij had zijn dashcam aan en was daardoor in staat iets bijzonders vast te leggen.
De gebeurtenis vond afgelopen september plaats, maar gaat nu, vooral via sociale media, viraal.
Je ziet op een gegeven moment "iets" links in beeld verschijnen, het lijkt op een kleine mistwolk.
Die wolk schijnt het specifiek gemunt te hebben op de taxi, alsof het deze doelbewust wil aanvallen.
En dat gebeurt vervolgens ook, wanneer de taxi als het ware wordt "opgeslokt" door de mistwolk.
Wanneer je echter de wolk wat uitvergroot, net voordat het de taxi omringt, dan is er een soort gezicht te ontdekken, waardoor veel mensen denken dat we hier niet met een mistwolk te maken hebben, maar met een bovennatuurlijk wezen.
Hieronder volgen de bewegende beelden en oordeel zelf wat het is: Een "gewone" mistwolk die een bijzondere route neemt, een bovennatuurlijk wezen of complete nep, wat natuurlijk ook altijd nog een mogelijkheid is.
Dat deze gebeurtenis zo viraal gaat, geeft wel aan dat het een onderwerp is dat behoorlijk leeft onder mensen.
Amazing UFO fleet recorded over Canada France Hawaii Telescope 6-Mar-2018
Amazing UFO fleet recorded over Canada France Hawaii Telescope 6-Mar-2018
On 6th March 2018 the observatory’s webcam captured a series of strange objects seemly flying in formation through the sky. The observatory is located atop the summit of Mauna Kea, a 4200 meter, dormant volcano located on the island of Hawaii.
Something Mysterious seems to be going on in the Night Sky
Something Mysterious seems to be going on in the Night Sky
On March 12, 2018 big sky flashes have been observed from Wellington, Ohio as a satellite high above the earth detected the same mysterious pulses!
Many people around the world notice that something strange is going on in the sky.
In the video below, MrMB333 analysis the strange phenomenon while people who have witnessed the phenomenon say:
Night skies are much brighter and there is a strange glow from where the Sun has set.
I definitely noticed a strong glow some nights long after the sun has set.
Like the glow is different along the entire horizon.
I can say the same for the night sky here in Opononi, Northland, New Zealand. I don't see the western ocean horizon, but there is a 'glow' to the west well after sunset.
I saw that glow after the sun went down and it was dark, on a cruise in Feb going south to Puerto Vallarta.
It might be some kind of energy being released from movement of the Earth’s core, maybe pole shift connected?
Could the flashes of light be caused by the solar winds penetrating a weakened magnetic shield?
According to Spaceweather, the vernal equinox is less than 10 days away. That means one thing: Cracks are opening in Earth's magnetic field. Researchers have long known that during weeks around equinoxes fissures form in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind can pour through the gaps.
NASA and European spacecraft have been detecting these cracks for years. Small ones are about the size of California, and many are wider than the entire planet. While the cracks are open, magnetic fields on Earth they are connected to those on the sun.
While these cracks are no danger to people on Earth there is another strange phenomenon that threatens to flip Earth’s magnetic field.
Earth’s magnetic field is decaying at such a rapid rate that scientists think the poles may flip.
New research shows the most significant weakening is happening under Africa, in an area called the ‘South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA).
The force field has weakened significantly in the past 160 years and scientists have suggested that it could be in the process of flipping. Effectively this means a switch in magnetic polarity and would see compasses point south instead of north.
Actually this has happened several times in the history of the planet, occurring roughly every 200,000 to 300,000 years. Approximately 40,000 years ago, it attempted to switch before snapping back into place, reports RT.
Scientists believe that the SAA is the most recent display of a recurring phenomenon in Earth’s core beneath Africa that then affects the entire globe.
They are getting stronger evidence that there’s something unusual about the core-mantle boundary under Africa that could be having an important impact on the global magnetic field.
About the strange glow in the night sky; once again a strange orange glow has been spotted in the night sky and this time in London, Ontario.
Witness Apelles_ofKos states: On my way home from the Alice cooper concert in Windsor I seen this orange glow in the sky at 1am. March 12, 2018.
I didn't think too much of it at first but I seen many reports of people seeing the same thing all over the world. Just curious about what this is because it wasn't a fire.
Despite it is not clear whether it is a weak magnetic field, a strange anomaly under Africa or maybe there is another unknown source that causes all those strange glows and flashes in the sky, it seems to be going on.
According to Russian scientists, the sun is about to hit us in the head. A solar weather forecast from the Russian Academy of Sciences says that, on March 18, the sun will spit a solar flare in our direction, triggering a geomagnetic storm with the potential to shut down electronics as well as cause headaches, dizziness, and sleeplessness in people around the world. The March 18 storm is the third solar storm to hit the earth this year, but 2018 is expected to be a relatively quiet period of activity for the Sun. The last “solar maximum,” the period in the sun’s 11-year cycle with the most activity, occurred in 2014.
Extreme solar storms can wreak havoc on satellites, GPS, and other communication systems. In the event of a major solar storm, essential services can be shut down to prevent permanent damage. NASA says that the storm later this month will not be powerful to affect communications devices. Just like terrestrial weather, however, solar storms can strengthen or weaken in intensity, and the exact power of the storm won’t be known until it hits.
Solar storms don’t just affect technology. A good solar pummeling can have adverse effects on humans too. Increased risk of stroke during geomagnetic storms has been reported, as has increased intensity in migraine headaches and cluster headache cycles. Disruptions to sleep cycles have been correlated with solar flares as well.
Geomagnetic storms have also been associated with depression, headaches, dizziness, confused thinking, and erratic behaviors In other words, it won’t be the St. Patrick’s Day hangover on March 18 that will have you doubled over begging for death and yelling obscenities at anyone unlucky enough to be in earshot, it will totally be the Sun’s fault.
“Put up your dukes!” -the Sun
Geomagnetic storms are due in part to Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), clouds of plasma released alongside solar flares. These massive emissions of charged particles can cause Earth’s magnetic field to behave wildly when faced with a direct hit.
It’s a relatively common occurrence. The phenomenon of aurora borealis, or northern lights, is caused by the ejection of magnetic radiation from the sun. The storms are usually harmless, but a major solar storm could be devastating to a world increasingly reliant on global communications. In 1989 most of the Canadian province of Quebec was effected by a solar storm blackout, and the northern lights were seen as far south as Texas.
This is the sun trying to kill you. Sleep tight!
Recently the U.S. Geological Survey has deployed new techniques to model the effects of geomagnetic storms in 3D, allowing a more accurate forecast of the impact of these storms will have.
NASA says that the March 18 solar storm will not be anything to worry about. That’s good news, because the same forecast has two more similar solar storms occurring only a few days later. You can come up with your own joke about weathermen being wrong.
Given all of the declassified files and recordings of unexplained aerial phenomena being made public in the United States, it’s no surprise that other countries including America’s closest neighbors would begin disclosing their own interest in or knowledge of UFOs. Case in point: a new trove of documents have been released which shed light on the Canadian government’s role in researching UFO phenomena. What will these add to the growing body of declassified UFO files?
Noted Canadian ufologist Chris Rutkowski uncovered the documents in Canada’s national archives and recently posted them to his blog Ufology Research. The 27 pages of documents detail six UFO cases recorded in 1967 and were prepared by Wing Commander Douglas Robertson. It is unknown to whom the documents were presented, though Rutkowski speculates it could have been for a newly-appointed Minister of Defence. Between 1966 and 1967, UFO reports went up by over 400% in Canada and several government departments began taking serious interest in these phenomena.
The documents ultimately breakdown numerous sightings and reports into seven categories: hoaxes, mass hysteria or psychological suggestion, misinterpretations of natural events, advanced or unknown military technology, and sightings likely due to psychological conditions. However, the report does list a category which includes truly anomalous sightings defined as “unusual sightings which the viewer is unable to identify or explain, namely, UFOs.” The document also contains references to various educational and medical institutions which aided the Ministry of Defence in debriefing, interviewing, and assessing witnesses.
Among the incidents referred to in the documents are the Falcon Lake incident, widely regarded as one of Canada’s most famous encounters. The new documents reveal that the Ministry of Defence found evidence of radioactivity which corroborates eyewitness testimony, and that scientists were unable to explain the anomaly, noting “a satisfactory ending or conclusion is still lacking.” Another incident in which a man reported a UFO flying over trees near Clear Water Bay found evidence of wilted leaves on said trees, with the Department of Forestry concluding “they are unable to explain the reason for the wilting.” Images of the documents and an analysis of them can be found on Rutkowski’s blog here.
A 1967 photograph taken in Nanton, Alberta.
Other incidents referred to include photographs of various unidentified flying objects, anomalous radar sightings, and even crop circles. Like in last year’s disclosure of the Pentagon’s secretive UFO research projects, these documents are far from the smoking gun proof of alien visitation we all wish they were. Still, disclosing that governments are indeed taking the UFO phenomenon seriously is a step in the right direction.
Unless, of course, all of these so-called disclosures are simply some kind of misdirection or some type of psy-op. Without a doubt, the real spooky stuff will never see the light of day, all evidence of it incinerated or buried at the bottom of a salt mine years ago. Is this new evidence meant to placate us just a little longer, keeping our attention on the government bureaucracies which hide these secrets as opposed to on the skies?
The Lower Peninsula of the state of Michigan is often referred to as “the mitten” because its shape resembles winter hand coverings or perhaps the leather gloves that baseball players wear. That shape may be ironic if the latest predictions hold true that China’s dead and falling Tiangong-1 space station will pierce Earth’s atmosphere on or about April 3rd and head straight for the pocket of Michigan’s mitt. Will this be the last out for Wolverine State?
“An Aerospace graphic shows that parts of southern Lower Michigan fall into the regions listed with the highest probability of debris landing.”
The Aerospace Corporation operates a federally funded research and development center in El Segundo, California, which provides technical guidance and advice on all aspects of space missions to military, civil, and commercial customers. One critical aspect is the end of these missions and Aerospace maintains a page on its website for tracking the ultimate demise of Tiangong-1, the 8.5 ton space station which China’s National Space Administration launched in 2011 and lost contact with and control over in January 2016. Since then, its final resting place has been the subject of speculations, predictions and warnings – along with varying degrees of indifference by the Chinese space program.
A map of the world provided by Aerospace (seen here) shows two narrow bands across in the northern and southern hemispheres that it predicts are the most likely areas for Tiangong-1 to hit. Other high probability areas include Northern China, central Italy, northern Spain, the Middle East, New Zealand, Tasmania, South America, southern Africa, and the northern states of the U.S. Should people living in these areas be worried?
“When considering the worst-case location (yellow regions of the map) the probability that a specific person (i.e., you) will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot. In the history of spaceflight, no known person has ever been harmed by reentering space debris.”
Drawing of Tiangong-1 in better days
Considering the Powerball jackpot as of this writing is up to $420 million due to no winning tickets for weeks, no one should be worried. And yet, the news is filled with stories of worried Lower Michigan residents. It could be that they’re uneasy after the same area was hit by pieces of a mysterious meteor on January 20th of this year – a meteor that attracted hunters hoping to cash in with a collector offering $20,000 for a kilo of meteorite matter. Who knows what pieces of Tiangong-1 might sell for?
Wait a minute! Is Michigan scare-mongering rumors about the Chinese space station to keep prospectors away so they can find and sell the valuable chunks of Chinese space debris for themselves? With the way the area’s economy has been hit over the past few decades, who can blame them?
No matter where it lands, Aerospace warns that it may not be wise to get too close to any debris.
“Potentially, there may be a highly toxic and corrosive substance called hydrazine on board the spacecraft that could survive reentry. For your safety, do not touch any debris you may find on the ground nor inhale vapors it may emit.”
Wait a minute! Is Aerospace spreading rumors so its people can collect the debris for themselves?
A screenshot from a video provided by the the Stars Academy of Arts & Science that purports to show a declassified instance of US Navy jet tracking a UFO in flightTo The Stars Academy of Arts & Science/YouTube
UFOs have been reported by the Navy and other branches of the military for decades.
Despite numerous reports, the military has not put any significant or serious effort into finding out specific explanations for UFO incidents.
One of the reasons why there has not been a serious effort is because there is a negative stigma associated with those who believe that the UFOs may be visitors from beyond Earth.
"I can tell you, I think it was not from this world," retired US Navy pilot Commander David Fravor told ABC News in an interview in December 2017.
"I'm not crazy, haven't been drinking. It was — after 18 years of flying, I've seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close."
Fravor was describing his encounter with an unidentified flying object during a training mission off the coast of California on November 14, 2004. The UFO was performing seemingly impossible moves — "left, right, forward, back, just random," in Fravor 's words, and then accelerated and disappeared.
"I have never seen anything in my life, in my history of flying that has the performance, the acceleration — keep in mind this thing had no wings," he said.
Video of the incident, along with another similar encounter, was published in December by the New York Times. The second video shows US Navy pilots tracking one of apparently numerous UFOs moving at high speeds with seemingly no source of propulsion.
Department of Defense
"This is a f------ drone bro," one pilot says. "There's a whole fleet of them. Look on the S.A." the other responds.
As the UFO continues on its flight path, one of the pilot makes a note of their speed and direction — "They are all going against the wind. The wind is 120 knots to the west. Look at that thing dude."
Soon, to the shock of the pilots, the UFO changes position. "Look at that thing!" one calls out as the UFO, somehow manages to turn on its side while still maintaining its speed and direction. "Its rotating!" the other pilot says.
Another video posted online last Friday by the To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science, a private scientific research group, shows a similar incident — a US Navy F/A-18 getting a lock on a UFO, and the crew yelling their excitement and confusion at each other.
"Whoa! Got it!" one of the pilots, yells after getting a lock. "What the f--- is that thing?!" the other asks.
These videos are a select few of a number of recorded encounters between the US Navy and UFO's that the Department of Defense has unclassified and released.
TTSA has posted videos to give an in-depth analysis on each event that the DoD has released.
The DoD has not identified any of the mystery aircraft, leading some to believe that they could be extraterrestrial technology manned by alien visitors.
The DoD did have a program dedicated to investigating UFO incidents that was started in 2007, but the department terminated the funding for the project in 2012. Though the Times reports that some defense and intelligence officials are still investigating the incidents, they appear to have made virtually no progress in coming to a conclusion or any findings.
Negative stigma attached to UFO research
There is reportedly a negative stigma associated with anyone who pursues the idea that the UFOs are extraterrestrial life visiting earth and believers tend to attribute the slow progress on identifying the aircraft on lack of interest from superiors.
"Nobody wants to be 'the alien guy' in the national security bureaucracy," Christopher Mellon, an advisor to TTSA and a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, writes in the Washington Post.
"Nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue," Mellon writes. "This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress."
As a result, he claims, the military does virtually nothing with the numerous reports of UFOs that servicemen make.
"There is no Pentagon process for synthesizing all the observations the military is making. The current approach is equivalent to having the Army conduct a submarine search without the Navy," Mellon writes.
"What we lack above all is recognition that this issue warrants a serious collection and analysis effort."
Mellon argues that the issue needs to be taken seriously, and that a concerted effort that cuts through the "quarrelsome national security bureaucracies" could find realistic explanations for the incidents, and not rule out alien life as purely fictional.
Robert Bigelow, an American billionaire who works with NASA, is likewise convinced that aliens exist and that UFOs have visited Earth.
"Internationally, we are the most backward country in the world on this issue," Bigelow told the New York Times. "Our scientists are scared of being ostracized, and our media is scared of the stigma."
Countries like China, Russia, and other European nations are willing to pursue this idea more than their American counterparts, according to Bigelow.
"They are proactive and willing to discussthis topic, rather than being held back by a juvenile taboo," he said.
Another “UFO” Video, And A Former DoD Officials Asks Why The Pentagon Doesn’t Care JAZZ SHAW
Another “UFO” Video, And A Former DoD Officials Asks Why The Pentagon Doesn’t Care
JAZZ SHAW
Back around Christmas time, we looked at some of the initial videos of “unknown aircraft” released by the government after they revealed a secret program which had been monitoring unidentified aerial threats. (Let’s face it… they’re talking about UFOs, whether they’re something cooked up by one of our black ops projects or somebody from another planet.) After that news came out, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a brief period where people were talking about it, but then it just sort of went away.
Well, another video has been released. This one was taken off the east coast of the United States in 2015 by some F-18 Hornet pilots. And with its release, Christopher Mellon is asking some of the same questions I’ve had in an op-ed at the Washington Post. But unlike me, this guy has a bit firmer background in this area. He’s a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for intelligence in both the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations. These days he serves an adviser to the To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science which we’ve discussed here before and he’s working with a number of other government and military personnel who are looking for answers.
Before we get to Mellon’s thoughts on this, let’s look at the latest video. It sets up with some background information on what it is you’re seeing in this footage shot from the weapons control systems of an F-18. You hear the voices of several pilots who are, somewhat shockingly, laughing as they try to figure out what the heck it is they’re tracking. It allegedly dropped down from more than 60K feet at supersonic speed, stopped about fifty feet over the ocean and took off. Much like the video from last December, the Super Hornets were unable to catch it. Oh… and it doesn’t have wings.
Nobody is sure what these things are, but as I said above, Mellon has questions.
Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization?
Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
I served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I know from numerous discussions with Pentagon officials over the past two years that military departments and agencies treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation. A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of “anomalous” aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data.
Mellon is expressing the frustration of a lot of people in the military and the intelligence community. You don’t have to believe in anything crazy or have any sort of opinion at all. But the government has a pile of information and nobody is compiling it across agencies and departments to try to get a handle on it. Everything is being treated like a one-off incident and if our government has any answers, they’re not telling anyone.
Mellon has a theory as to why it’s not being pursued more vigorously. Nobody wants to be “the alien guy” in the national security bureaucracy. That’s traditionally been a great way to end your career quickly. But somebody needs to at least be asking the questions, don’t they? If you don’t want to think it’s extraterrestrials, that’s fine. I’m not even sure I believe that. But these aren’t pictures of swamp gas or weather balloons. If this is something that the Russians or the Chinese cooked up, we’ve probably got a very serious problem if we have nothing even remotely close to that sort of capability. I suppose the more comforting theory is that it’s actually one of ours but it’s so classified they can’t admit it. But if that’s the case, why release these videos?
Whether it’s ours, Putin’s or somebody from the Pleiades system, wouldn’t our government want to know? And if that technology is real and actually capable of doing anything close to what these videos seem to indicate, wouldn’t we want to get hold of it or figure out how to develop it ourselves?
(Fact Check) The Great Pyramid Of Giza Contains Enough Stone To Build Wall Around Earth
(Fact Check) The Great Pyramid Of Giza Contains Enough Stone To Build Wall Around Earth
That sounds just ludicrous, doesn’t it? But is it crazy?
You’d be surprised by the answer.
The Great Pyramid of Giza hides many secrets. In fact, despite the fact that it was (according to mainstream scholars) built some four thousand years ago, we have still not unraveled all its mysteries.
The Great Pyramid of Giza.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Thousands of years ago, the Great Pyramid of Giza was erected in modern-day Egypt.
The result? A stunning ancient monument home to many mysteries, yet few answers.
Despite having studied, researched and explored the pyramid for centuries, mainstream scholars have been unable to understand how the builders of the structure managed to erect such a precise monument, thousands of years ago, without the use of modern tools and technologie
An even greater mystery is how the Pyramid’s builders erected what was long considered as the most accurately aligned structure in existence, facing true north with only 3/60th of a degree of error.
However, not only is this ancient monument one of the most accurately aligned buildings on the surface of the planet, there are countless other details that make it even more stunning.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Did you now that, somehow, thousands of years ago, the ancient builders of the Pyramid used more than 2,300,000 stone blocks that weigh from 2 to 50 tons each to build a structure that would stand the test of time?
If that fact did not arouse your curiosity, did you know that the base of the pyramid covers 55,000 m2? And that the outer mantle was composed of 144,000 casing stones, all of them highly polished and flat to an accuracy of 1/100th of an inch, about 100 inches thick and weighing approximately 15 tons each?
Stunning characteristics of a structure built thousands of years ago
However, did you know that the Great Pyramid of Giza contains enough stone to build a wall around the Earth?
Yeah, it’s not fake news, not craziness, and not me trying to write up a cool article, all of my articles are cool. So yeah after this claim, you’d ask… where’s the proof?
Show me proof.
Ok.
Let’s get the facts straight.
The height of the Great Pyramid is 139 meters. The Great Pyramid has a width of 230m.
Our planet’s circumference is 40,075,000m.
2 feet in meters: 0.6096m
So, the volume of the Pyramid is:
2302 * 139 * (1/3) = 2,451,033 m3 = 2.4 x106 m3
Suppose the width of the wall is X m.
Then, the volume of the wall is: (40,075,000 * 0.6096) * X = 24,429,720 * X m3 ~ 24×106 * X m3
Now since 2.4×106 / 24×106 = 0.1, we have that, for the statement to be true, the width of the wall must be no wider than 10cm or about 0.33 feet. Source
This Is The Ancient Rock Fortress Of Sigiriya, The Eight Ancient Wonder Of The World
This Is The Ancient Rock Fortress Of Sigiriya, The Eight Ancient Wonder Of The World
At an altitude of 200 meters, on the top of a massive column of rock lie the magnificent ancient ruins of a temple reaching for the stars.
Located in the northern MataleDistrict near the town of Dambullain in SriLanka lie the enigmatic ruins of an ancient rock fortress. Near-vertical walls soar to a flat-topped summit that is said to house the ruins of an ancient civilization, thought to be once the epicenter of the short-lived kingdom of Kassapa.
According to the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle the Culavamsa, it is believed to have been built by KingKasyapa, between 477 – 495 CE.
Erected on the massive rock, the temple and its surroundings were meticulously decorated with colorful frescoes in the distant past.
The history of the temple and the times that predate it are surrounded by rich history and magnificent ancient legends.
Said to be the Alakamandava, or the City of the Gods built up before 50centuries ago by KingKubera who was the half-brother of Ravana (Ravan) as described in the Ramayanaya, Lal Sirinivas and Mirando Obesekara described Sigiriya as a post-historical archeology turning point of Ravana.
A stunning view of the Lion’s Rock.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
Despite having a rich history dating back to around 495 CE, researchers have found evidence of human occupation nearly five thousand years ago during the Mesolithic Period.
Today’s tourists are welcomed by enormous lion paws about halfway up the side of this rock. The name of this place is derived from this structure —Sīhāgiri, the LionRock.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
As noted by geologists, the Sigiriyarock is a remnant of an eruption of hardened magma of an extinct and long-eroded volcano.
It stands out above the surrounding plain, visible in kilometers from all directions.
Aerial view of the rock fortress.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
The temple was built on a surface that according to many appears to have been cut clean.
Standing as evidence of ancient man’s ingenuity, the ancient rock fortress offers a rich history with is more than enough to impress every single visitor, offering a breathtaking view of the ingenuity and creativity of the builders.
The upper palace, located on top of the rock, still has cisterns cut into the rock, where you can still find water.
The pits and walls that surround the lower palace are richly ornamented.
An aerial view of the Rock Fortress.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
After the death of its builder, King Kasyapa, it remained a monastic complex until the fourteenth century, after which it was entirely abandoned.
In 1831 Major Jonathan Forbes of the 78th Highlanders of the British army, while returning on horseback from a trip to Pollonnuruwa, encountered the “bush covered summit of Sigiriya”.
The Sigiri inscriptions were deciphered by the archaeologist Paranavithana who published a renowned work in two volumes, in Oxford, known as “Sigiri glyphs”.
“I am Budal [the writer’s name]. Came with hundreds of people to see Sigiriya. Since all the others wrote poems, I did not!”
Paranavithana wrote the popular book “History of Sigiriya”.
As some readers of Mysterious Universe will know, one of my big interests is the Contactee/Space Brother phenomenon, which was most prominent in the 1950s. It’s a subject which is very often derided by many in Ufology (and, at times, with good reason…). But, that doesn’t take away the fact that the issue is an important one. Of those who tackled the whole controversy, certainly one of the most knowledgeable was the late Colin Bennett. He wrote what – in my opinion – remains the most important and insightful book on contactee George Adamski. The title of Colin’s book? Looking for Orthon – Orthon being the alleged name of the equally alleged alien that Adamski claimed to have met in November 1952.
Back in 2009, I interviewed Colin about his ideas on Adamski, the Space Brothers and the Contactee crowd. And, today, I thought I would share with you – and without interruption – Colin’s observations on those long-gone times of the 1950s when the Contactee movement ruled the ufological roost. Colin, who died in 2014, told me:
“Many Orthons have appeared throughout history. The equivalents to Adamski’s Venusian ‘space brother’ have appeared on mountain tops, in deserts, and have appeared to walk on water, or fly in the sky. Their sole function is to sow seeds in the head; just as a farmer grows a particular crop. These seeds act on the imagination, which replicates and amplifies whatever story-technology is around at the time. People such as Adamski and the rest of the contactees were, and still are, like psychic lightning-rods for certain brands of information. Undoubtedly, rich or poor, clever or dumb, they are possessed by a kind of higher cerebral disturbance, and like Moses, they are as prepared for the ‘visitation’ as they anxiously await for a new product brand, for the equivalent to RFID-type branding is what ‘contact’ is all about.
“Contactees are host-nutrients for whatever cultural sales lines are on offer from visions conjured up by clouds, sea or sand. The message is ‘consumed’ and thoroughly processed exactly as a viral product is absorbed. The incomprehensibility of the received stories is irrelevant. They represent a heavily codified branch of postmodern intellectual consumerism. In receiving ‘messages’ at all, Contactees are bar coded as it were, and elements of the induced story-technology are ready to crystallize out into that final alchemical stage called the mechanical real. But we must be careful here. As the alchemist said to his apprentice, ‘The game may be rigged, but it’s the only game in town.’
“Deception and all its ramifications is the key to this whole business. This does not burst the bubble of the mystery however, for manipulative levels of faction may well be our first clue as to how a possible alien mind might work. If the levels of deception of all kinds in human culture are anything to go by, the range of such within an alien culture must be both multiple and profound.
“The ‘space-folk’ are sculptured by wars between rival viral memes competing for prime-time belief. It may be that, as an independent form of non-organic life, memes as active viral information can display an Orthon entity at a drop of a hat. They come complete with sets of cultural agendas. After they have rung the doorbell as it were, and the goods are sold, these metaphysical salesmen disappear like the traditional Men in Black, no doubt traveling on to seed other dreams in other towns and other heads. The goods we have unwittingly bought are half-formed memories of having met someone from another world.
“Over a half-century later, we can no more erase the legendary Contactees from our heads than we can erase Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe. Once induced by mere transient suggestion, these powerful images become permanent fast-breeders, turning out scripts and performances in all our heads – for no-one can escape – even as we sleep. It might come as a disappointment to extraterrestrial nut-and-bolters, but as [Jacques] Vallee says in Passport to Magonia, Orthon and his brood may be a form of ‘alien’ life that has been with us for a long time. Such ethereal beings are part of the structure of that much-despised and rather unfashionable idea described by the phrase mystical experience.
“A man says he has seen a fairy being. Another man says that is impossible, because fairy beings do not exist. When we subtract the two beliefs we do not get zero as an answer. We have the thinnest of belief-tissue remaining, but perhaps mechanical quantity is irrelevant. The smallest part of an HTML address contains the whole address, rather like a fractal. These creatures, though seen and photographed, leave no trace of fights, no food swath, no blood, no sweat. They appear as partially formed displays rather then flesh and blood as we know it. As soon as we are into display we are into Media. It is somewhat chilling to think that if an Orthon or even perhaps a Jesus can appear in this manner, then so can many things else, including objects and even situations. In this it is possible that we are host-receptors of skunk-smoke from life forms not yet known to us.
“There is no doubt that Contactee claims allow access to a refreshing world which includes humor, and inspired absurdity. They allow humanity to breathe and access a Matrix world in which anything that can be imagined can happen. It might be denied by social-scientific left, but the truth is that dreams, fantasies, and mystical experiences of all kinds play an absolutely essential part in all human mental operations.
“George Adamski played a significant part in establishing New Age thinking. It might be well to remember that the entire body of our moral philosophy and spiritual life is formed by visions and inspirations. It does not come from science or technology. Those who thoughtlessly dismiss mystical experience cut themselves off from all art, literature, and no small part of all thought and philosophy. As mystics and prophets know, when desert light strikes the retina, anything that can be imagined can happen. The greatest tribute that can be paid to Adamski is that through both foul means and fair, he helped to create one of the very few routes to the unconscious that we have.”
Imagine a year without summer. The sky turns gray during the day and glows a sinister red at night. Trees wither and start to fall, all vegetation dries down and becomes a desolate shadow of its former self. Animals also start to suffer and thin down, and the damage propagates up the food chain, wiping out entire ecosystems. The same cycle repeats year after year, with no visible end in sight.
Sounds like an apocalyptic scenario, doesn’t it? Well, that’s exactly what the world, and us too, as part of it, went through some 74,000 years ago during a supervolcano eruption. And some of us actually thrived.
18th-century painting of a volcanic eruption by Joseph Wright of Derby.
Surviving a disaster
Volcanic eruptions are scary enough as it is, but supervolcanoes are an entirely different beast. A supervolcano eruption brings deposits of at least 1,000 cubic kilometers (240 cubic miles), affecting the entire planet’s climate and chemical make-up. There are about 20 known supervolcanoes on the planet, and geologists have managed to discover just 12 eruptions from supervolcanoes, the oldest known one dating from about 25 million years ago.
Toba, in Indonesia, was one of these eruptions.
The eruption was large enough to have deposited an ash layer approximately 15 cm (6 in) thick over all of South Asia and ejected some 10,000 million tonnes of sulfurous acid, as well as 6,000 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. It was a catastrophic eruption, of biblical proportions, but the worst happened after the eruption: the aerosols ejected by the volcano dropped global temperatures 3.0 to 3.5 °C (5 to 6 °F) for several years.
Volcanic winter
To give you a sense of scale, in 1815, Mount Tambora’s eruption (also in Indonesia) brought crop failures, famine, and mass migrations when it reduced mean temperatures by 0.53 °C (0.95 °F). The eruption column reached the stratosphere at an altitude of more than 43 kilometers (141,000 ft), creating an aerosol veil that blocked part of incoming sunlight energy. This is called a volcanic winter.
Long-term cooling effects are primarily dependent upon injection of sulfur gasses into the stratosphere. The Toba eruption dwarfs Mount Tambora, with the effects being much more devastating.
No species were spared from the effects, and there is evidence of a population bottleneck (a sharp reduction in the size of a population) in central east Africa and India, which affects the genetic make-up of the human worldwide population to this day. But some populations might have been better off than others.
Some ecosystems (called refugia) still had the necessary resources to survive. Most notably, populations close to the sea would have likely been able to eat shellfish, which are nutritious and less affected by eruptions.
Unlikely evidence
Researchers have found new evidence relating to this eruption in an unlikely place: archaeological sediment in South Africa.
When the Toba eruption took place, it spewed rock, gas, and tiny microscopic pieces of glass. Under a microscope, they have a very distinctive hook-like shape which can trace them to the eruption. These fragments are so small that when they’re ejected into the atmosphere, they can spread across the entire world. Such a fragment was chanced upon by Panagiotis (Takis) Karkanas, who found it in some sediment encased in resin.
“It was one shard particle out of millions of other mineral particles that I was investigating. But it was there, and it couldn’t be anything else,” says Karkanas.
He and his colleagues had considered the possibility of finding such a volcanic shard, but it wasn’t easy to identify one.
“Takis and I had discussed the potential of finding the Toba shards in the sediments of our archaeological site, and with his eagle eye, he found one,” explains Curtis W. Marean, project director of the Pinnacle Point excavations where the shard was found.
The research team has been excavating caves at Pinnacle Point, South Africa, for nearly 20 years. Glass shards from Mount Toba were discovered at the PP5-6 location.
Image credits: Erich Fisher.
They sent it to Eugene Smith, a volcanologist with the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. For Smith, it was a long trip down memory lane.
“The Pinnacle Point study brought me back to the study of glass shards from my master’s thesis 40 years earlier,” says Smith.
It was kind of like looking for a needle in an archaeological haystack, Smith told ZME Science in an email.
“The shards are small (less than 100 microns in size) and very rare (one shard per about 10,000 grains), but through careful processing in our lab at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) we were able to identify multiple shards from both Pinnacle Point and Vleesbaai. For Pinnacle Point, we have three chemical analyses for three shards (but we found about 40 more). For Vleesbaai, we now have 12 analyses for 12 different shards.”
Finding such a shard obviously involves a lot of chance, but through thoughtful and careful preparations, researchers can improve their chances, Smith says.
“Although the shards are very rare, we increase the odds of finding them by doing careful processing in the UNLV lab. Samples are first cleaned to remove organic and carbonate material. They then go through several heavy liquid steps to remove both heavier and lighter material leaving grains with a specific gravity in the proper range to find shards. These grains are mounted on an epoxy round and polished. We then look at each grain on the round using a petrographic microsope.”
It’s a tedious, but rewarding process.
“The rounds contain a lot of mineral grains but they can be identified using their optical properties. Shards are glass, so they are optically isotopic and easy to distinguish from mineral grains like quartz or feldspar. After identifying the shards, we analyze them using electron microprobe and laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometer. This is a very tedious process that takes quite a bit of care and patience, but finding shards and identifying their source is an amazing experience.”
Together, they were able to confirm the source of the shard. Putting two and two together (the archaeological and the volcanologic evidence), they concluded that humans must have survived the eruption in order to leave the remains behind.
“Many previous studies have tried to test the hypothesis that Toba devastated human populations,” Marean notes. “But they have failed because they have been unable to present definitive evidence linking a human occupation to the exact moment of the event.”
There’s a rich record of archaeological remains in the area, indicating a continuously inhabited area, Marean tells ZME Science.
“There is a rich record of human habitation along the south coast of South Africa from about 120,000 years ago to the present. The record from 160,000 to 120,000 is more ephemeral. The evidence includes their discarded stone tools, food remains, and fire places. The groups would be hunter-gatherers living in social groups of about 20-30 people, and perhaps organized into larger ethnolinguistic groups, but we are not sure about the latter.”
Researchers say the archaeological evidence indicates not only that the human populations managed to survive, but that they were able to go about their lives relatively undisturbed — which was a rare privilege, given the scale of the volcanic eruption.
“These models tell us a lot about how people lived at the site and how their activities changed through time,” say Erich Fisher, associate research scientist with the Institute of Human Origins, who built the detailed photorealistic 3D models from the data. “What we found was that during and after the time of the Toba eruption people lived at the site continuously, and there was no evidence that it impacted their daily lives.”
It’s quite possible that their proximity to the rich coast ensured a stable diet and allowed them to thrive, as other populations were partially or completely wiped out.
“We speculated in the paper that the rick coastal foods, such as shellfish, may have provided a more resilient food base than terrestrial foods and this might have allowed people to make it through better than interior groups,” Marean concluded for ZME Science.
“Of course being very near the volcano one would see a very strong temporary effect on weather. But there would have been worldwide climate impacts, but these would also vary regionally.”
Journal Reference: Eugene Smith, Zenobia Jacobs, Racheal Johnsen, Minghua Ren, Erich C. Fisher, Simen Oestmo, Jayne Wilkins, Jacob A. Harris, Panagiotis Karkanas, Shelby Fitch, Amber Ciravolo, Deborah Keenan, Naomi Cleghorn, Christine S. Lane, Thalassa Matthews, and Curtis W. Marean (2018). Humans thrived in South Africa through the Toba super-volcanic eruptions ~74,000 years ago. Nature DOI:10.1038/nature25967.
Enormous filaments within the solar system's closest massive region of star formation are made up of wispy fibers of cold gas. New observations have revealed these fibers in exquisite detail, helping scientists to compare the enormous star-formation region with other, smaller clouds and move toward a unified model of star formation under different environments.
"The detection of fibers in Orion opens a new window on the description of the internal gas structure in massive clouds," wrote astronomer Alvaro Hacar Gonzalez, of the Netherlands' Leiden University. "Since their discovery, different studies have reported the detection of fibers in isolated and clustered star-forming environments."
Hacar Gonzalez led a team of researchers who studied one of the Orion nebula's most massive filaments, a region in the northern portion of the Orion A molecular cloud called the Integral Shape Filament (ISF), which stretches nearly 23 light-years in length. While the ISF is massive, there are other, smaller star-formation clouds that also host smaller filaments, which have been better characterized. Previous research has argued that there should be a direct link between the massive filaments and their low-mass counterparts, but astronomers have been stymied by an inability to reach the sensitivities necessary to probe the more massive filaments. [Zoom Through the Famous Orion Nebula with NASA's Incredible 3D Video]
Wispy filaments of gas reveal the details of star formation in one branch of the Orion Nebula. The features appear red-hot and fiery in the image but are actually extremely cold.
Credit: A. Hacar/ESO/H. Drass/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
By combining observations from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and several other telescopes, Hacar Gonzalez and his colleagues were able to probe these regions for the first time. They found that the structures resembled their smaller cousins, suggesting that the two types of structures might have more similar star-formation processes than scientists previously thought.
"Our new ALMA observations demonstrate that this underlying organization is not restricted to low-mass clouds, but [is] also intrinsic of regions at higher-mass regimes," Hacar Gonzalez wrote in the new paper, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics in February.
A unified star-formation theory
Located about 1,350 light-years from Earth, the Orion Nebula is the solar system's closest massive star-formation region. Its proximity has made it a target for astronomers working to understand how stars form and evolve in their first few million years. Stars are born when dense clouds of gas and dust begin to collapse under their own gravity. The resulting protostar eventually grows into a full-fledged star.
The Orion Nebula is made up of cold gas, visible only in the millimeter wavelength. That makes ALMA one of the only instruments capable of probing structures such as the ISF. Over the past few million years, the ISF has spawned several thousand young stars, and it contains dozens, if not hundreds, of embedded young stellar objects.
"The ISF is one of the best-studied massive filaments, and is usually employed as a benchmark for clustered star-formation theories," Hacar Gonzalez wrote.
The researchers were able to hunt for the cold, charged gas called diazenylium that makes up the ISF and identify a network of 55 fibers within the filament. By combining ALMA's observations with those made by the Millimetric Radioastronomy Institute's (IRAM) 30-meter telescope in the Spanish Sierra Nevada and the more familiar view by the ESO's Very Large Telescope, scientists were able to create the engaging new image and probe the thin fibers hiding within the enormous filament.
In addition to identifying the fibers, the team found an intricate network of gas within the massive ISF. Prominent clumps split into multiple independent substructures, which went on to branch into smaller filamentary features. The hierarchal organization resembles the bundles of fibers found in low-mass filaments and intermediate-mass clusters, according to the scientists.
"Investigating the internal structure of massive filaments is of crucial importance for the description of the star formation process in the Milky Way," Hacar Gonzalez wrote. "The widespread detection of fibers seems to reflect the preferred organization mechanism for the dense molecular gas within clouds."
The fibers don't just share a structure with their smaller counterparts. By comparing them to existing studies of other, smaller regions, the team found other similar characteristics. These similarities, which include surface density of the star-forming fibers, suggest that star formation in smaller clouds of gas works much as it does in larger regions.
"Based on this empirical correlation, we propose a unified star-formation scenario where the observational differences between low- and high-mass clouds, as well as both isolated and clustered regimes, naturally emerge from their initial concentration of fibers," Hacar Gonzalez wrote.
Waking up in the middle of the night to find your body frozen and pinned down by an invisible weight is the stuff that ghost stories are made of. Sure enough, a range of cultures have folded sleep paralysis into their horror lore — Americans did so recently in the 2016 horror film Dead Awake — suggesting that this recurring nightmare isn’t specific to any one time or place. Scientists studying the terrifying phenomenon think that it’s actually a neurologically driven process — rather, one that goes awry, suggesting there’s no escaping it unless we intervene directly in our heads.
Until science illuminated the origin of this disturbing nightmare, humans assumed it had a supernatural source. In places as varied as Scandinavia, Newfoundland, Korea, the American South, and Turkey, folklore blames the experience on some kind of evil spirit, witch, or creature that sits on a person’s chest or holds them down while they sleep. Now we know that what people have blamed on the Night Hag for so many centuries is actually the result of the sleep cycle going wrong (sorry, Night Hag).
You probably don’t realize it, but you’re actually physically paralyzed while you sleep for a big chunk of the night, which scientists in the Journal of Neuroscienceblamed on the tandem work of the neurotransmitters GABA and glycine in 2011. This state is known as “muscle atonia,” and it only happens during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep — the deepest part of the sleep cycle that produces the most vivid dreams. It’s thought that we evolved this temporary paralysis because otherwise we might act out our dreams more than we already do, which could be very dangerous. During REM sleep, which happens in periods lasting 90 to 120 minutes, your breathing also becomes faster and highly irregular. It’s not a great part of the sleep cycle to interrupt.
John Henry Fuseli's 'The Nightmare' depicts the night hag on a sleeping woman's chest.
Unfortunately, poor sleep habits, exhaustion, shift work, and jet lag can shake you awake during REM sleep, according to researchers at the Anomalistic PsychologyResearch Unit, Goldsmiths, at the University of London. When you’re in the groggy, half-awake state — quickly waking up from REM sleep is notoriously difficult — breathing feels laborious because it’s been happening at an irregular pace, and you’re keenly aware that you can’t move. As panic sets in, it only exacerbates the feeling that you can’t breathe.
To make matters worse, studies have shown that hallucinations often accompany the physical terror. In 2011 in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews, researchers combed through 35 studies on sleep paralysis from the past 50 years and grouped the hallucinations into three horrific types: “The presence of an intruder, pressure on the chest sometimes accompanied by physical and/or sexual assault experiences and levitation or out-of-body experiences.” Researchers think these hallucinations are a remnant of the dream state, though it’s not clear why these three types are the most common.
Luckily, the sensation passes as you ease out of the dream state, and it’s not thought to cause any long-term harm, at least physically. Psychologically, though, sleep paralysis can mess with your head long after you get out of bed. In 2013, a study in Clinical Psychological Science looked at the types of distress people experienced after having an episode and found that that the effects include sensing unseen presences, feeling like death is imminent, having a heightened fear of threat or assault, and generally ruminating on the episode, though the type of distress that ensues depends on the details of the experience. People who had particularly sense-based experiences — like straight-up seeing and feeling a demon crouched on your chest — tended to have more physical distress later. The effects are bad enough that the researchers say sleep paralysis could “make a significant contribution to the billions of dollars, worldwide, in costs associated with accidents, illnesses, and lost productivity associated with sleep disturbances.
Even if you’re one of the 92 percent of the general population that doesn’t experience sleep paralysis, you’ll never fully escape their influence. The word “nightmare” was actually first coined to describe sleep paralysis, folding in the Old English word mare — which refers to the mythological incubi, demonic sleep-molesters that were more than willing to crush a dreamer’s lungs.
Elon Musk is optimistic that next year SpaceX’s first interplanetary shuttle will take flight.
During a Q&A event at South by Southwest today, Musk answered several questions regarding Mars, from how would a colony would govern itself to what kind of businesses he’d like to see on the red planet. (Yes, he really wants a Mars bar.) As for the timeline of when interplanetary travel may happen, he didn’t delay with an answer.
“People have told me my timeline is very optimistic,” he said. “We are building the first Mars interplanetary ship. It’ll be able to do short up and down flights in the first half of next year.”
He expects the ship to be capable of moving 150 metric tons into orbit with double the amount for the payload. As expected, the ship and the rockets will be reusable, which he explained will reduce the cost per flight dramatically.
Once the ship is built, he hopes other countries and companies will now have proof that space travel is viable so they can “up their game.” When interplanetary travel becomes available, he believes that will open up many entrepreneurial opportunities including some Mars entertainment.
“Mars will need everything from pizza joints and will need great bars. Mars bars,” he laughed. “I love great dad jokes.”
Once a colony makes it to Mars, Musk suggested that the people govern themselves as a direct democracy with laws that have fewer words than The Lord of the Rings. The laws should also have a sunset clause or at least be easier to remove than to pass.
Boats moving through water make bow waves. Objects in space, including Earth, make them, too. Even the moon’s shadow – penetrating Earth’s atmosphere during a total solar eclipse – creates moving bow waves.
You know how – when you’re standing at the front or bow of a moving boat – you can see a curved ridge of water moving out to either side of you? These are called bow waves, and objects in space create them, too. Unlike bow waves in water, which only occur on the water’s surface, cosmic bow shocks happen in three dimensions. NASA ScienceCasts posted a new video about them to YouTube on March 8, 2018. As the video points out:
There are bow shocks everywhere, even in space–and these cosmic bow shocks can tell scientists cosmic secrets.
Even the emptiest regions of space contain protons, electrons, atoms, molecules and other matter. When planets, stars, and the plasma clouds ejected from supernovae fly at a high speed through this surrounding medium, cosmic bow shocks are generated in that medium.
As mentioned in the video, Earth creates a bow shock, too, as we move in orbit around the sun. It happens when the solar wind (a stream of charged particles from the sun) meets Earth’s magnetosphere (the magnetic environment around Earth). Explanations of Earth’s bow shock get complicated and jargon-laden fast, but this Encyclopedia Britannica article about Earth’s magnetosphere provides a good picture of what’s happening, if you’re interested.
Also, if you’re interested in bow shocks, be sure to check out this cool article from 2011 about how the moon’s shadow creates waves in Earth’s atmosphere during a solar eclipse. The waves emanating from the moon shadow – as it penetrates the atmosphere and falls on Earth’s surface on eclipse day – happen much as a ship moving through the ocean creates waves at its bow and stern.
The Hubble Space Telescope obtained this beautiful image of a cosmic bow shock in February 1995. The bow shock – the arcing, graceful structure – is about half a light-year across, created from the wind from the star LL Orionis colliding with the general flow of gas and dust in the Orion Nebula.
Bottom line: A new NASA ScienceCast about cosmic bow shocks, a word and a link about Earth’s bow shock, and a link to a story about the bow shock created by the moon’s shadow during a solar eclipse.
Declassified UFO Footage Filmed by Air Force F/A-18 Super Hornet Leaves Experts In Shock
Declassified UFO Footage Filmed by Air Force F/A-18 Super Hornet Leaves Experts In Shock
This is it, folks. This incredible video footage, captured by an F/A-18F Super Hornet is considered the real deal when it comes to proof of UFO’s and ‘alien life.’
“It’s time to put aside taboos about UFOs and listen to our pilots and radar operators,” says Christopher Mellon, former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The US State Department has just declassified a recording obtained by a Boeing warplane F/A-18F Super Hornet where a mysterious UFO can be seen flying at high speed, leaving the pilots in disbelief.
The mind-bending video, released on March 9 by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science website, was recorded on the East Coast of the United States in 2015.
Ufologists consider it as one of the best pieces of evidence supporting the idea that UFO’s are real, and they are not from Earth.
The mysterious object was captured by the pilot’s thanks to the AN/ASQ-228 Advanced Targeting Forward-Looking Infrared(ATFLIR), a multi-sensor, electro-optical targeting pod incorporating a thermographic camera, low-light television camera, target laser rangefinder/laser designator, and laser spot tracker developed and manufactured by Raytheon.
In the video, you can observe a white dot moving at great speed and hear how the surprised pilots comment on the situation.
“I have it!” One of the pilots rejoices when he locates the target with the radar.
Following this newly declassified video footage, Christopher Mellon, former staff director of the Senate Intelligence Committee and former deputy assistant secretary of the Intelligence Defense Sub-Secretariat for the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, has criticized the silence of the Pentagon and the Department of Defense on the UFO phenomenon.
UFO’s are real, and its time to start paying attention to the countless declassified documents, images, video files, and comments of highly ranked government and military individuals when speaking about these mysterious objects.
Mellon explains in an article published in The Washington Post that he is aware of “numerous conversations” by Pentagon officials in which they describe these phenomena as “isolated incidents.”
However, UFO sightings are anything but isolated.
The former senior official says that his colleague Luis Elizondo, who led a Pentagon intelligence program aimed at studying UFO evidence, “resigned last fall to protest the lack of government attention,” the expert said.
The former adviser also mentions unusual cases described in some reports reviewed by the staff of the USS Princeton aircraft carrier in 2004, whose radar recorded the descent of unidentified aircraft from atmospheric heights “at supersonic speeds,” stopping a few meters above the ocean.
“The United States does not possess anything capable of such exploits,” Mellon emphasizes.
However, as we have noted before, these are not isolated events.
Mr. Mellon also recalls two other cases when F-18 fighters were involved in a UFO chase that they described as “white apparatuses approximately 13 meters long”.
Faced with this type of evidence, the expert does not understand why the US Government has not handled the issue with more significant effort.
“If the origin of these objects is a mystery, so is the government’s paralysis,” he laments.
The phenomenon became relevant last December when the State Department declassified two videos of the same nature and unveiled a secret Pentagon program for the Identification of Advanced Aerospace Threats.
Mystery Anomaly Found Beneath African Could Cause Earth’s Poles To Switch
Mystery Anomaly Found Beneath African Could Cause Earth’s Poles To Switch
According to scientists, this mysterious anomaly could be a precursor to Earth’s poles changing positions.
New scientific studies have found something rather alarming.
Earth’s magnetic field is dramatically weakening. As noted by a new research, the disruption of Earth’s magnetic field is part of a pattern that has existed for the last 1,000 years.
And while experts have known that Earth’s magnetic field has been weakening over the decades, of all the places on the planet, one region of Africa suffers a more dangerous anomaly than the rest.
Our planet is wrapped in a dipolar magnetic field that originates in the planet’s core.
This field moves as the core flows and, after long geological periods, Earth’s poles can switch positions, as magnetic north moves to the south (and vice versa).
This is a process that can last up to thousands of years, and the last time it happened was about 780,000 years ago, although it was closed again about 40,000 years ago.
Some researchers say we should be worried.
But why exactly?
Well, if Earth’s poles really do switch, the main problem is that during the process the intensity of the magnetic field that protects our planet from solar radiation would vary more than normal. Scientists fear that during this occurrence, the planet’s magnetic field could allow more hazardous radiation from space penetrate the protective layer, causing problems on the surface of the planet.
As of now, we have no idea when the flip may occur, especially due to the lack of data.
However, researchers have spent years studying a number of clues that can help predict that hypothetical inversal as much as possible.
This study has pointed experts to a part on Earth that is troubling. Referred to as the South Atlantic Anomaly: this massive area that extends from Chile to Zimbabwe.
Scientists say that the field is so weak within the anomaly that its dangerous for the satellites to come into contact since the additional radiation it lets through could disrupt electronic devices.
“We’ve known for quite some time that the magnetic field has been changing, but we didn’t really know if this was unusual for this region on a longer timescale, or whether it was normal,” says physicist Vincent Hare from the University of Rochester in New York.
However, evidence of Earth’s magnetic field weakening and possible pole reversal is scarce, mostly because of the lack of archaeomagnetic data: physical evidence of magnetism in the Earth’s past, preserved in archaeological relics of ancient times.
According to a recent study, some 1,000 years ago, the Bantu peoples performed rituals in times of environmental difficulties.
During periods of drought, they burned their huts of clay and grains, in a ritual of sacred cleansing to make the rains return, without knowing that they carried out a kind of scientific fieldwork for researchers centuries later.
“When you burn clay at very high temperatures, you actually stabilize the magnetic minerals, and when they cool from these very high temperatures, they lock in a record of the earth’s magnetic field,” one of the team, geophysicist John Tarduno explains.
“We were looking for the recurrent behavior of anomalies because we think that’s what is happening today and causing the South Atlantic Anomaly,” Tarduno says.
“We found evidence that these anomalies have happened in the past, and this helps us contextualize the current changes in the magnetic field.”
The fact that the ancient burned down their huts of clay and grains has allowed experts to figuring out that the weakening of the so-called South Atlantic Anomaly is not a standalone phenomenon in history, as similar fluctuations were ‘registered’ in 400-450 CE, 700-750 CE, and 1225-1550 CE.
Furthermore, as noted by Science Alert, the fact that there’s a pattern tells us that the position of the South Atlantic Anomaly isn’t a geographic fluke.
“We’re getting stronger evidence that there’s something unusual about the core-mantle boundary under Africa that could be having an important impact on the global magnetic field,” Tarduno says.
Lost time, everything suddenly going into slow motion, shadows out of sync, objects and voices out of sync are common phenomena experienced by those who come in close contact with extraterrestrial vehicles and their inhabitants
Australian Dual UFO Sighting Time Distortion
On the night of Jan. 22, 1988 the Knowles family said that they were driving on a road in a secluded part of the Australian outback when they noticed a light in the sky seemed to be following them. After a few miles the light came closer and revealed itself to be an egg-shaped craft navigated by intelligent beings. It soon hovered in front of them, according to the mother and her two sons, and lifted them and their car off the road using some mysterious tractor beam coming from the UFO.
It was at this moment that members of the family noticed that everything suddenly went into slow motion, including their voices, which were so slow they couldn’t understand each other. In addition, after the UFO put their car back on the road, the Knowles realized that more than 20 minutes had passed, which none of them could account for.
The Knowles Contact Authorities
Not surprisingly, the family was in a state of shock as they pulled into a gas station a few miles from where the incident occurred. They frantically told the attendant about their abduction by aliens in such a convincing manner that he immediately called the police, who dutifully took the incredulous report.
This would probably been the end of the case and it would have been eventually sealed with a shrug of the shoulders if it weren’t for the fact a few hours later a boat full of Australian fisherman found themselves also the specimens of the same craft and its extraterrestrial crew.
Here was an example of dual UFO sightings and alien contact reports that simply could not be explained away for a myriad of reasons.
Summary Of The Case
(1) The incidents, which occurred separately, one near Sidney Australia and the other off the country’s coastline, were reported by the Associated Press to have occurred on the same evening.
(2) The description of a UFO buzzing a car occupied by Faye Knowles and her three sons was identical to the description of a similar incident experienced by the crew of a tuna boat fishing in the Great Australian Bright the same evening.
(3) Knowles and her sons all witnessed the event, which they say involved their vehicle being lifted off an isolated Outback road by a mysterious beam coming from a UFO shaped like an egg in a cup.
(4) The fact that Knowles, her sons and the crew of the fishing boat independently testified that their voices changed and that they appeared to speak in slow motion makes this case one in a million!
Time Distortion A Shared Experience
This shared phenomenon of having their speech slow down and everything about them appearing to be in slow motion indicates a time distortion, which some physicists theorize would occur if a person came in the proximity of an object moving faster than or approaching the speed of light.
Similar slow motion effects, or time distortions, have been described in some of the most credible alien abduction cases and this alone raises the Australian case to a high level of believability in my view.
Faster Than The Speed of Light
Again, even though Einstein did not believe it was possible for an object to travel the speed of light or faster, today some scientists speculate that it could be done if a technology were developed that could create an alteration in the local space-time.
They also theorize that any person who came close enough to such a time anomaly would experience a time distortion similar to those described by the Knowles family and the fishermen.
Here’s an actual interview of the family soon after the event:
Researchers suggest that a newly released clip taken by a camera on board a military jet showing a UFO “streaking over the Atlantic Ocean,” offers enough evidence to warrant the research of UFOs to be taken seriously by the Pentagon. This mysterious object was captured on camera by a military jet that was flying at 25,000 feet above the ocean, according to Fox News.
The military crew on board that jet can be heard on the video with a mixture of surprise, apprehension, and possibly a bit of fear mixed into their reactions as to what they are seeing at the time. The pilot shouts, “What the f— is that thing?” Then the jet’s weapon’s officer is heard saying “Oh my gosh dude!”
The video can be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, according to the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, which is a private research group that posted the video clip online for the masses to see. That video is posted above and you can see when the camera locks in the mysterious object and starts tracking it.
This video was taken in 2015 and it became available to the public when it recently became declassified. A report emerged last year indicating that the Pentagon had spent $22 million on UFO research. The report was released with three videos that showed similar UFO encounters with mysterious objects streaming through the sky.
EFKS/Shutterstock
The images in the videos, along with the observations made by pilots and radar operators, “appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies,” according to Christopher Mellon, a former defense official in the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations and an adviser to the Stars Academy. Mellon has questioned the response in the past about the videos of UFOs held by the Pentagon, until they recently became declassified.
Mellon does not appear to hold the government’s investigation, or rather lack of investigation, into these UFOs in high regard. He said that he wondered if the U.S. has been “technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China,” or could these government videos “be evidence of some alien civilization. Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
The Washington Post suggested in an article that the “military keeps encountering UFOs” and asks, “Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?” According to the Washington Post, it seems as if the east coast is a hot spot for these sightings, as over a dozen incidents have been documented in this region since 2015.
These sightings are coming from reports via the military, and not civilian backyard stargazers. Because these mysterious objects maneuver beyond anything technology on Earth has to offer, the debate on what these objects are, as well as their origin, is limited. The long-ago “weather balloon” excuse just doesn’t cut it today with videos replacing verbal accounts of eyewitnesses to an encounter.
It appears there is evidence in these videos that leave researchers like Mellon perplexed over the lack of probes into these mysterious objects. Mellon cannot understand why the Pentagon has not gone any further with the investigation into what these mysterious objects might be.
WE MAY HAVE UNCOVERED THE FIRST EVER EVIDENCE OF THE MULTIVERSE
WE MAY HAVE UNCOVERED THE FIRST EVER EVIDENCE OF THE MULTIVERSE
A recent study on a space anomaly that has perplexed scientists for years has some suggesting that it could be explained by a parallel “bubble universe” — although there are other, more standard potential explanations, as well.
Too Cold
For years, scientists have been baffled by a weird anomaly far away in space: a mysterious “Cold Spot” about 1.8 billion light-years across. It is cooler than its surroundings by around 0.00015 degrees Celsius (0.00027 degrees Fahrenheit), a fact astronomers discovered by measuring background radiation throughout the universe.
Previously, astronomers believed that this space could be cooler simply because it had less matter in it than most sections of space. They dubbed it a massive supervoid and estimated that it had 10,000 galaxies fewer than other comparable sections of space.
But now, in a recently published survey of galaxies, astronomers from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) say they have discovered that this supervoide could not exist. They now believe that the galaxies in the cold spot are just clustered around smaller voids that populate the cold spot like bubbles. These small voids, however, cannot explain the temperature difference observed.
Multiverse?
To link the temperature differences to the smaller voids, the researchers say a non-standard cosmological model would be required. “But our data place powerful constraints on any attempt to do that,” explained researcher Ruari Mackenzie in an RAS press release. While the study had a large margin of error, the simulations suggest there is only a two percent probability that the Cold Spot formed randomly.
Credit: The Royal Astronomical Society
“This means we can’t entirely rule out that the Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model. But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic explanations,” said researcher Tom Shanks in the press release. “Perhaps the most exciting of these is that the Cold Spot was caused by a collision between our universe and another bubble universe.”
If more detailed studies support the findings of this research, the Cold Spot might turn out to be the first evidence for the multiverse, though far more evidence would be needed to confirm our universe is indeed one of many.
LE PENTAGONE PUBLIE UNE TROISIÈME VIDÉO D'OVNI FILMÉE PAR DES PILOTES DE L'US NAVY
LE PENTAGONE PUBLIE UNE TROISIÈME VIDÉO D'OVNI FILMÉE PAR DES PILOTES DE L'US NAVY
La troisième vidéo du Pentagone vient d'être publiée, à travers l'Académie To The Stars, et comme l'a dit Luis Elizondo, qui était en charge d'un projet du Pentagone de 22 millions de dollars, d'enquêter sur les menaces qui pourraient représenter le OVNIS pour la sécurité nationale.
To The Stars Academy a été fondée par le Rock Star Tom DeLonge, du groupe Blink 182, et a été dédiée au reportage des cas d'ovnis avec Elizondo.
Cette nouvelle vidéo, appelée GO FAST, a été enregistrée par un combattant F / A-18 Super Hornet de l'US Navy, en utilisant une équipe appelée Raytheon ATFLIR Pod, sur la côte est des États-Unis, en 2015.
Lors du démarrage de la vidéo, nous pouvons voir que le capteur est en infrarouge, ce qui montre les régions de noir comme les plus chaudes. Ce capteur dispose de deux modes d'imagerie : demi-onde et infrarouge visuel. Il a une haute résolution et peut localiser et désigner des cibles à des distances supérieures à 40 nm. Les images vidéo représentent l'image affichée dans le cockpit et les opérateurs de système d'armes (WSO).
Tout en capturant la vidéo, l'avion américain Il faisait 7 600 mètres de haut et à une vitesse de 400 km / h. Comme vous pouvez le voir dans la vidéo, le capteur pointe à 22 degrés sous l'horizon et 36 degrés à gauche de l'avion. La surface de l'océan est clairement visible en arrière-plan.
Le véhicule non identifié a une forme ovale et une couleur blanche. Il se déplace à grande vitesse de la partie supérieure droite vers la partie inférieure gauche de l'écran, volant très bas au-dessus de l'eau. Initialement, le capteur ne peut pas capturer l'objet. L'opérateur des systèmes d'armes (WSO) dirige le capteur devant l'objet pour essayer une autre capture. Lors de la troisième tentative, la capture du suivi du capteur est réussie.
Le capteur est maintenant en mode "autotrack", où le capteur utilise le contraste et d'autres paramètres pour verrouiller sur une cible, en le maintenant automatiquement centré dans le cadre d'affichage du capteur. Ce mode peut suivre les objets ayant des vitesses et des accélérations dans des limites définies, qui sont définies par les limites de manœuvre attendues de la cible.
À droite de l'écran, le télémètre indique que l'objet se trouve à une distance oblique de 4,4 milles marins (5,1 milles terrestres). Le F / A-18 commence un virage à gauche pour maintenir l'objet dans le champ de vision du capteur ATFLIR.
A midi vingt-deux, l'OSM (Office of Surface Mining) est interrogé : "Avez-vous classé une cible en mouvement ?" Et répondu : "Non, c'est dans l'autotrack." La question révèle la surprise de la possibilité de capturer l'objet manuellement. Ceci indique la difficulté de suivre manuellement l'objet avec le capteur ATFLIR.
Observations
Il est important de garder à l'esprit
• Il n'y a pas d'ailes ou de queue évidentes sur l'objet. Même les images IR d'un missile de croisière auraient des ailes visibles dans cette gamme.
• Il n'y a pas de stylo d'échappement de l'objet. Une colonne d'échappement est clairement visible sur les avions conventionnels à la fréquence infrarouge moyenne des ondes utilisées par l'ATFLIR. Ensuite, une image infrarouge à ondes moyennes d'un F-16 en vol est montrée. Le capteur est en mode "blanc chaud". Notez que la longueur de la colonne d'échappement est presque la longueur de l'avion. La vidéo dont elle était encore extraite indique clairement que le F-16 est subsonique, ce qui signifie que l'accélérateur a un réglage bas qui crée des températures d'échappement et un volume de gaz d'échappement relativement bas. Dans une configuration de puissance plus élevée, la colonne d'échappement serait beaucoup plus grande et plus lumineuse. Vous pouvez regarder la vidéo ci-dessous :
Bien que la vidéo ne montre pas autant que les deux précédentes, il est possible de voir un objet ovale se déplacer à grande vitesse sur la mer. Nous devons garder à l'esprit que ce matériel a été vu et analysé par le personnel de la marine américaine. Correctement formés pour détecter les appareils volants connus (vous pouvez écouter et lire les sous-titres de la vidéo qui montrent la surprise des pilotes avant cet objet inconnu). Cette vidéo est maintenant plus d'évidence d'activité d'OVNI sur notre planète, et comment les diverses entités gouvernementales ont été au courant de ceci au cours des années. Fernando T. Vous pouvez voir les deux vidéos précédentes ci-dessous :
The idea of other intelligent beings has long been fascinating to us. Ancient myths have us interacting with gods and all kinds of strange, mythical creatures such as centaurs. The stars have also played an important role in cultures around the world. Over time, ancient myths became nothing more than legends, while technology and scientific discovery started to destroy our belief in strange nonhumans.
This made us look further to the stars for our hopes, and all-new theories have been born since. Many of today’s theories about intelligent, nonhuman life are not only bizarre but try to trace everything back to ancient days. Modern conspiracy theorists believe that everything is connected and that the events of Roswell were not even close to the beginning.
10. The Mass UFO Sightings Over Los Angeles Decades Ago
Before Roswell, a strange incident happened that might have gotten way more attention in history books if not for the fact that it happened in the middle of World War II. In 1942, several years before the infamous Roswell incident, the city of Los Angeles was in an extremely tense mood. The Japanese had only recently bombed Pearl Harbor, so anything strange in the sky was immediately assumed to be a Japanese air raid.
On the night of February 24, 1942, residents of Los Angeles saw many unidentified aircraft in the sky. Everyone started panicking, thinking that the aircraft were Japanese bombers. However, despite the city launching an all-out, coordinated attack against these strange objects in the sky, there’s no physical evidence that they managed to hit anything, nor is there any evidence that the UFOs attempted to fire back or interact in any way.
Some witnesses claimed to have seen objects shaped like lozenges. Poor-quality pictures taken from that night make it look like there’s a stereotypical alien ship ominously hovering over Los Angeles. To add fuel to the fire, the Navy and Air Force gave contradicting reports on the incident. The incident may seem very mysterious, but there was a massive war going on. It may simply have been experimental technology of some kind. We may never know.
9. The Crawling Space Slug On Pluto
Recently, NASA made history by making brand-new, color photos of Pluto that we had never seen before and getting close enough to make interesting, new observations. Before long, people were speculating about what NASA may have covered up and what it may have “leaked” to the public about alleged alien life. One photo in particular caught the eye of conspiracy theorists, who insisted that it showed a gigantic alien space slug slowly moving across the surface of the planet. While the gigantic moving object does look vaguely like a slug, it—unfortunately—is not an example of alien life.
However, the explanation given by NASA is still pretty interesting. The folks at NASA claim that what people saw was a gigantic chunk of nitrogen-rich ice that floated to the surface of Pluto only to slowly melt and sink below again. Experts say that this behavior on the surface of Pluto is very similar to that of a lava lamp. The “slug” people saw was a block of this ice floating temporarily on the surface before slipping beneath the waves. It may not be alien life, but a vast part of an entire planet’s surface acting like one giant lava lamp is pretty cool, too.
8. The Giant People Who Live Under The Earth’s Crust
Most people look to space in the hopes of finding alien life; others search among us for those who may be “hybrids.” Yet there are also those who are convinced that much of the world above us is a sham and that the true secrets are beneath our feet—beneath the Earth. With the advent of social media, conspiracies that suggest that the Earth is nothing like people think are becoming more popular.
While many theorists like to claim that the Earth is flat, others say that it is hollow and that there is a completely separate world inside of it, which somehow has its own, functioning Sun despite being inside our Earth. According to these conspiracy claims, Admiral Byrd did not actually fly over the North Pole in the 1940s—he flew inside it. He discovered another world inside the Earth’s crust, and the government has been doing its best to cover up the story ever since.
Some conspiracy theorists also take seriously an old legend from a group of Scandinavians who were sailing and ended up near the Pole. The Scandinavians thought it strange that it started to get warmer instead of colder, and they suddenly found themselves sailing inside the Earth. They found a fantastic land full of rich bounty and kind, giant people who ate similarly giant fruits and vegetables. According to the conspiracy theorists, these beings are much smarter than we are and sometimes communicate through intermediaries in order to try to better steer humanity’s fate. Some even claim they secretly talk to the Dalai Lama.
7. The Secret Reptilian Aliens Who Control The World’s Governments
Most of us are already well aware of the theory about reptilians dreamed up by David Icke. The claim is that long ago, alien beings seeded themselves among us and held on to their power through the ages by keeping it in the family. Whether they have managed to keep all knowledge of their original roots or ways depends on the theory, but the claim is that these people are at least hybrids, are aware of it, and are using their connections and power to control the world. However, what many people don’t realize is that the main point of this theory is even more ridiculous than that.
The truth is that many details about the prior history of these reptilians were added to this theory much later to make it sound more plausible. The theory’s actual main evidence is simply that most people who are royalty or have spent time in a higher office are distant cousins or otherwise related. At the very least, people suggest that this is some kind of a conspiracy, even if it is not an extraterrestrial one.
However, all those people being related is not really that strange. Anyone who’s played the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” knows the theory that no two people are more than six people away in terms of introduction. Seeing how back in the day, many royal families married for political expediency, it doesn’t seem very odd that people in royalty or politics are distantly related or at least connected by marriage.
6. The Alien Woman Supposedly Spotted On The Martian Landscape
With the advent of the Internet, the community of conspiracy theorists has grown at an accelerated rate. These theorists are able to go through thousands of publicly available photos from NASA in the hopes of finding alien life or some evidence of suspicious government activity and quickly affirm the most bizarre theories inside their echo chamber of unreason and paranoia. Others are simply obsessed with the idea of finding alien life and will often convince themselves of its existence when there is no reason to think so.
A good example of this is the “Martian woman” story that popped up in 2015. People were sharing a photo taken by the Mars Curiosity rover that showed what some claimed to be an alien woman on Mars. As you might imagine, the photo was extremely unclear. Many people compared calling the image a person to seeing shapes in the clouds: the stirrings of imagination and nothing more. Others went so far as to claim that a rock in the picture might be the alien’s “house.”
CNET followed the story and could not get an explanation from NASA beyond their spokespeople saying it was likely people’s overactive imaginations. However, while they didn’t hear back from NASA, the folks at CNET did analyze the other photos from Mars Curiosity. They pointed out that, based on the rover’s scale, if the “woman” were an alien being, she would be an incredibly small fraction of our size.
5. The Real Men In Black May Be Our Government Messing With Us
While many suspect that the government is trying to hide the existence of alien life, some people think that it may actually be more complicated than that. According to them, there is evidence that former government agents have infiltrated UFO enthusiast circles and fed them fake information about UFOs, even going so far as to suggest that there was more government information to spill than there actually was.
Sometimes, these agents allegedly had full institutional help in order to fool gullible UFO enthusiasts. They even helped plant fake evidence to get people more riled up about the subject. This also gave the agents a way to monitor UFO groups to see if they were getting close to figuring out any of the actual military projects the government was working on, which was especially important at the time because they didn’t want the Russians to get wind of it.
This conspiracy theory suggests that the vast majority of alien lore is actually the government trying to intentionally confuse us in order to keep us and the Russians away from the truly important projects. This was also a great way for the government to explain away any strange things that happened due to experiments that didn’t go as planned.
4. Governments Are Aware Of More Than 80 Distinct Alien Species
Many theorists claim that governments around the world have already made contact with at least one alien species. Usually, the claims are that these aliens are benign and wish to help us or work with us in some way. There have also been stories about government officials coming out and saying there’s more going on than the public is being told. However, one particular story is unique in that its claims are far beyond the usual.
The theory goes that a high-up Canadian official confirmed that we contacted multiple alien species and worked with several different ones over the years. Where it gets even more insane is when the theorist claims that—thanks to information gleaned from government officials—we know there are at least 80 distinct, intelligent species of aliens.
Of course, the theory is somewhat hurt by the descriptions of these “alien” races. The vast majority of them look a lot like humans and read more like descriptions of different races in a video game than they do actual alien species. The more unique-looking ones are supposedly able to shift forms and move through different dimensions. For what it’s worth, the theorist emphasizes multiple times that he or she is “not just making this up.”
3. Venus Was Once Host To Earth-Like Life
Venus has long been known as Earth’s sister planet, despite the fact that Venus spins its own way in the universe and has an atmosphere that is incredibly toxic to those who live on our planet. The reason for the “sister” status is that scientists believe that Venus may have once been very much like Earth. It’s believed that Venus once had a lot more water on it and lost it over time. Some theories have suggested that Venus ended up with a runaway greenhouse gas effect on a level way worse than anything we are dealing with on Earth. Eventually, these greenhouse gases ended up causing Venus to lose its water and turned its atmosphere into something inhospitable to human life.
In recent years, studies have further confirmed this, suggesting that Venus was once a water-rich planet and may have been capable of supporting intelligent life of the human variety. This has led conspiracy theorists to wonder if perhaps Venus once was home to human-like species or if some Venusians managed to survive the cataclysm and evolve into a new breed of intelligent beings. The idea of intelligent life so close to Earth is very exciting to alien theorists.
2. Jesus Christ Was An Alien-Human Hybrid
For the longest time, most alien conspiracy theories focused on the time period between the Roswell incident and the present day. Recently, we have seen a rash of theories about alleged ancient alien visitors who came to our planet millennia ago and changed our culture and history forever. These theories tend to claim that if something done by ancient people can’t be explained with our knowledge of their technology, it was therefore done by alien visitors with technology far superior to ours. Many of these theorists believe that aliens lived among us through the early days of recorded history, and that some of them, or at least their hybrids, might still be alive today.
One of these theories suggests that Jesus Christ was actually an alien-human hybrid. The theorist points out that there are great similarities between the dream visits Mary receives and some of the strange stories you hear of people being abducted by aliens. They also suggest that the virgin birth was possible because the aliens artificially inseminated Mary during one of their abduction experiments.
The theorist goes on to point out all the important people in history who have similar origin stories of either a virgin birth or some kind of hybrid birth involving a so-called “god.” The suggestion is that many of our important figures were designed by aliens in order to influence the path of humanity. These figures would include the vast majority of early religious thinkers and philosophers.
1. Human DNA Has Been Irrevocably Tampered With And Altered By Past Alien Visitors
The same people who believe that ancient alien visitors are responsible for the pyramids, Jesus, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, all of the Mayan ruins, the Easter Island heads, and anything else made by early man, are also convinced that humans themselves could not have achieved their place in the world without the help of ancient aliens. Essentially, such theorists have decided to replace the traditional God with a group of nebulous sentient beings with vague motivations and advanced technology that might as well be magic, as far as our understanding is concerned.
Many not only believe in alien-human hybrids but think that human DNA was at one point greatly altered by alien visitors, either to jump-start our evolution, make us into better worker drones for the aliens’ purposes, or just to experiment on us to see what would happen. Recently, conspiracy theorists went crazy at the news that human DNA appeared to have foreign DNA in it, which couldn’t have occurred through natural evolution.
The explanation from scientists is that the foreign DNA is from microorganisms that were present in the same environment as developing humans, but the theorists are convinced that it is the result of deliberate tampering by ancient alien visitors.
The small size of the blue halite crystals found in two meteorites is shown next to a pair of tweezers.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Queenie Hoi Shan Chan
The odds were infinitesimal at best. First, there was the fact that two meteorites both fell to Earth in 1998 — in Monahans, Texas, and Zag, Morocco, to be exact, giving each its namesake.
When Queenie Chan and her colleagues examined both meteorites at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, though, they discovered another layer of phenomena: blue halite salt crystals that contained water in liquid form and were surrounded by amino acids. Their findings were first described in an academic paper that was presented to the 80th annual meeting of The Meteoritical Society in July.
Photomicrograph of blue halite from Zag.
Image: Dr. Queenie Hoi Shan Chan
“When we opened it and looked at it under the microscope, we could see the liquid floating inside of the blue salt crystals,” says Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at Open University in England and a former researcher at the space center. “When we moved the sample around, we saw a bubble moving here and there, so we know that there is some sort of liquid inside of the salt crystal.
"It was astonishing the first time when we found it, and then we were wondering, 'OK, so we found liquid water. What comes with it? Is there any organic compound?'”
When the meteorites were first found and sent directly to the space center, the technology did not exist to conduct an analysis of the amino acid content inside of the salt crystals, which are about 2 millimeters in width. Using what is known as ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC), Chan and her team were able to dissolve the salt crystals in water to extract the amino acids and separate any other organic compounds.
See figure: 'Halite (blue) crystals in Monahans (a) and Zag (b) H chondrites. (Online version in colour.) ' from publication 'The search for and analysis of direct samples of early Solar System...
“We're lucky that both meteorites fell in a really dry environment,” Chan says. “So [they were] protected from terrestrial contamination and got retrieved really quickly and kept at the Johnson Space Center.”
Chan says that her team believes that the blue salt crystals, which resemble blue sapphires, may have come from Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The Monahans and Zag meteorites are estimated to be 4.5 billion years old — but are believed to have originated from a different asteroid — meaning that the salt crystals might have hitched a ride to the two meteorites.
The meteorites reached a temperature of 650 degrees Celsius (approximately 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit), Chan says. At that temperature, water would have left the salt crystals, which leads to the theory of the involvement of a second asteroid or other object — one that is really rich in water and organic compounds and could possibly sustain other forms of extraterrestrial life.
In spite of the exciting discoveries, more research is needed on the meteorites to provide a more holistic analysis of their composition.
“It’s really like this mystery box nowadays,” Chan says.
Astronomers from the Breakthrough Listen initiative, the largest ever scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of alien civilizations, have detected a new ‘fast radio burst,’ an extremely powerful radio signal from a distant galaxy.
An artist’s impression of a fast radio burst reaching Earth.
Image credit: Jingchuan Yu / Beijing Planetarium.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious and rarely detected bursts of energy from space. Scientists estimate that there are between 2,000 and 10,000 FRBs occurring in the sky every day.
These events have durations of milliseconds and exhibit the characteristic dispersion sweep of radio pulsars. They emit as much energy in one millisecond as the Sun emits in 10,000 years, but the physical phenomenon that causes them is unknown.
Less than two dozen FRBs have been detected to date. Most give off only a single burst and do not flash repeatedly.
“While astronomers don’t know all that much about FRBs, we can infer some intriguing details about them,” said Breakthrough Listen project scientist Dr. Danny Price, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley.
“Firstly, they exhibit a tell-tale sweep in frequency that suggests they are incredibly far away: billions of light years. FRBs travel billions of years to get to us, and only last a few milliseconds, suggesting the emission mechanism is short-lived. For us to detect them clearly after such a long journey, they have also to be insanely bright.”
“What can produce such bursts? We don’t know yet, but leading theories involve neutron stars and cataclysmic events,” he said. “There’s also a neat theory that they are due to interstellar extraterrestrial travel. We’d love that to be the case, but have to rule out all plausible astrophysical theories first.”
“There is no known astronomical source that generates radio bursts at such a high brightness, which is tens of billions of times brighter than the known population of pulsars, for example,” said Breakthrough Listen and Harvard physicist Professor Avi Loeb.
Detection of FRB 180301 with the Breakthrough Listen backend instrument at CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope: the top panel shows the de-dispersed pulse while the bottom panel shows the frequency structure with the pulse dispersed across 340 MHz of the observed band.
Image credit: Breakthrough Listen.
The Breakthrough Listen initiative is foremostly a search for technologically-capable life beyond Earth; however, a real-time search for FRBs runs in tandem.
The new burst, dubbed FRB 180301, was detected on March 1, 2018, at 7:34 a.m. UTC, during Breakthrough Listen observations with the 21-cm multibeam receiver of CSIRO’s Parkes Radio Telescope.
The receiver was centered on J2000 coordinates RA 06:12:43.4, DEC +04:33:44.8.
This is not the first time that the Breakthrough Listen researchers have picked up one of these mysterious and fleeting bursts — in August 2017 FRB 121102, the only FRB known to repeat, was caught in the act by the team using the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.
But the FRB180301 event is the first new FRB source that Breakthrough Listen has discovered.
“During our observations at the Parkes Radio Telescope on March 1, 2018, we detected a mysterious and fleeting phenomenon known as a FRB,” Dr. Price said.
Ancient civilisation used sound energy to 'LEVITATE and contact aliens' – shock claim
Ancient civilisation used sound energy to 'LEVITATE and contact aliens' – shock claim
ARCHAEOLOGICAL findings suggest previous civilisations used circular structures as energy-generating devices to create man-made portals in time, according to boffins online
The research – which extended over a two-year period – suggested that human beings from thousands of years ago produced natural sound harmonic frequencies produced from the surface of the Earth.
In the clip, the narrator explains that the Sumerian civilisation may have inhabited parts of southern Africa thousands of years ago.
The Sumers are one of the earliest known civilisations known to walk the Earth.
They are said to date back to 3,000BC.
UFO MANIA - THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
ALIEN CONTACT: Could previous civilisations spoken with extraterrestrial beings
The technology they apparently used is said to be similar to the way we use laser technology today.
Some of the frequencies recorded are believed to reach more than 380 gigahertz – much greater than any levels used today.
The discovery has left many confused as to what this previous society could possibly have done with the energy they created and whether they could have possibly known more about our planet than we do today.
The video was uploaded to YouTube channel UFOmania yesterday, and has already racked up more than 5000 hits.
And viewers suggested that previous societies have been in contact with extraterrestrial life.
One comment read: “Sound is one of the most abundant forms of free energy on the planet.
“It is the primordial source of all things and is the common denominator of all creation.
“With that being said, if an extraterrestrial race wanted to harvest energy from the planet, it could create such energy with sound.
“Sound was used as energy to levitate objects in order to create the monuments that opened vortices which allowed spacecraft to come and go."
And another added: “I always thought that many ancient rock carvings show a spiral, which could be some kind of sound wave.
“This is something they can only draw and couldn't put into words.
“Many petroglyphs around the world show a spiral of some kind I think it's some kind of sound energy that we cannot understand at this point in time.”
UFO Seen Heading Out To The Ocean Over Texas, March 7, 2018, UFO Sighting News
UFO Seen Heading Out To The Ocean Over Texas, March 7, 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 7, 2018 Location of sighting: Bangs, Texas, USA Source: MUFON #90697 In Texas this week a glowing disk was seen appearing and disappearing over and over in the sky. You can see that this is not the sun, which is probably in the distance outside the range of the camera lens. This UFO is heading out over the ocean, which covers 75% of the earths surface. It must be heading to an underwater base. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
Teardrop/Meteor shape but hovering, slightly descending; appeared/disappeared materialized/dematerialized.
White UFO Recorded Moving Near Chem Trail Raises Questions About Why? UFO Sighting News.
White UFO Recorded Moving Near Chem Trail Raises Questions About Why? UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 10-2-2017 Location of sighting: Killington, Vermont, USA Source: MUFON #90707 UFOs are frequently seen near the chem trails of jets around the globe. They are sometimes seen flying in and out of the trail itself, taking samples, running statistics and analysis, to help predict future events. What global events? Aliens have AI which can make future predictions with a very low failure rate. These predictions could be anything from how far are we to the next level of aircraft, to how far we are from global extinction due to pollution. Scott C. Waring Eyewitness states:
Planes were making chem-trails. I took some photos. I did not see the object until reviewing my photos 2 days later.
An F/A-18 Hornet lands on the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier in the Atlantic ocean on Oct. 25, 2017.
(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)
Newly released footage allegedly shows a U.S. Navy encounter with a mysterious object flying over the Atlantic Ocean.
The 35 second clip was reportedly captured by an infrared camera aboard a F/A-18 fighter jet travelling at 25,000 feet in 2015.
“What the [expletive] is that thing?!” a pilot exclaims after the sensor locks-on to the fast moving object. “Look at that flying!”
“Oh my gosh dude!” says the weapons system operator.
The video was released online by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences, a private scientific research company. While the organization did not state how it was obtained, it is apparently available to the public through a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Defense.
In December 2017, two similar videos were released to the public, amid the Pentagon’s acknowledgement of a $22 million program that investigated UFOs, funded from 2008 to 2012.
The pair of videos showed an encounter by U.S. Navy fighter jets with a white, oval shaped flying object off the coast of San Diego in 2004. One of the pilots involved in the incident, retired Commander David Fravor, told CNN that he saw what looked like a “40-foot-long Tic Tac” maneuvering rapidly and changing its direction.
In October 2017, fighter jets were dispatched to investigate a strange object caught by radar, and sighted by pilots, flying along a commercial route in broad daylight over Oregon. The fighter jets however found nothing.
Christopher Mellon, a former defense official in the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations and an adviser to the Stars Academy, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that these videos “appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies.”
“Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015,” he wrote.
Yet not enough is being done by the government to investigate these encounters, Mellon contends in the piece.
“Reports from different services and agencies remain largely ignored and unevaluated inside their respective bureaucratic stovepipes. There is no Pentagon process for synthesizing all the observations the military is making,” he wrote.
“If the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, so is the paralysis of the U.S. government in the face of such evidence.”
Mellon observed that military departments and agencies have instead treated “such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation.”
One of the problems hampering development was the stigma associated with conducting research in this field, Mellon observed.
“Nobody wants to be ‘the alien guy’ in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress,” he said.
“It is time to set aside taboos regarding ‘UFOs’ and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.”
In October 2017, Luis Elizondo, the former head of the Pentagon intelligence program investigating UFOs resigned to protest what he described excessive secrecy surrounding the program, and internal opposition to it, the New York Times reported.
Mellon asked in his op-ed if the US has been “technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China?” Or might these released videos “be evidence of some alien civilization.”
“Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
2015 footage is latest to be released after the Pentagon UFO research became public.
Newly-released video of a mysterious object streaking over the Atlantic Ocean shows the Pentagon needs to take UFOs seriously, a researcher says.
The sensational two-minute clip captured by a camera aboard a US Navy F/A 18 jet flying at 25,000 feet wowed military personnel.
“What the f— is that thing?” shouted the pilot in the video posted online by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a private research company.
“Oh my gosh dude!” exclaimed the jet’s weapons systems officer.
The video was shot off the East Coast in 2015. To the Stars Academy did not say how it obtained the declassified footage, but said others could obtain it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, “appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies,” writes Christopher Mellon, a former defense official in the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations and an adviser to To the Stars Academy.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Mellon reasoned that if the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, “so is the paralysis of the US government in the face of such evidence.”
Mellon, who served as an intelligence official for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, charged that military and department agencies “treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation.”
Mellon compared the government’s current approach to UFOs to the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI prior to 9/11.
He wondered if the US has been “technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China” or might these videos “be evidence of some alien civilization. Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
And it has led a former key official in the Bush and Clinton administrations to urge the US government to take action.
Writing in the Washington Post, Christopher Mellon said: “Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China?
GETTY
US MILITARY: The strange encounter three years ago involved a US F18 fighter jet
“Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilisation?
“Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
Footage emerged last year of a sighting involving jets from the battleship USS Nimitz in 2004 off the San Diego coast.
“Might they be evidence of some alien civilisation? Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
Ex Bush official Christopher Mellon
This groundbreaking programme, had a budget of £16.5million allocated to it annually by the Department of Defence.
Military intelligence officer Luis Elizondo, who ran AATIP, recently made astonishing claims about how investigators believed they had been to understand how the UFOs fly.
Working with expert scientists, they believe the craft can effectively create their own time-space bubble, which allows them to fly at such incredible speeds.
While the US government said AATIP was closed in 2012, Elizondo claimed he worked on the highly-sensitive project until October last year until he resigned over “excessive secrecy and internal opposition”.
Mr Mellon said that the bizarre reports from US military staff who have encountered the craft must be investigated further.
“These mysterious aircraft easily sped away from and outmanoeuvered America’s front-line fighters without a discernible means of propulsion,” he wrote.
“From my work with To the Stars Academy, which seeks to raise private funds to investigate incidents like the 2004 Nimitz encounter, I know they continue to occur, because we are being approached by military personnel who are concerned about national security and frustrated by how the Defense Department is handling such reports.
“If the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, so is the paralysis of the US government in the face of such evidence."
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
11-03-2018
Un OVNI sphérique repéré en orbite autour de la Lune (vidéo)
Un OVNI sphérique repéré en orbite autour de la Lune (vidéo)
Il y a peu un OVNI rond et noir a été filmé alors qu’il passait à grande vitesse au-dessus de la surface de la Lune. Les images de cet objet extraordinaire ont été publiées sur YouTube.
Cette vidéo, qui a fait sensation, nous montre un engin non identifié se déplaçant très rapidement autour de la circonférence du seul satellite naturel de notre planète. Malgré le fait que la caméra zoome sur cet OVNI, il demeure impossible d’expliquer rationnellement son origine.
Au bout d’une poignée de secondes, il finit par disparaître sur le côté droit. Ces images ont été initialement mises en ligne sur la chaîne YouTube UFO Institute le 2 mars 2018.
Un description accompagne la vidéo : « Je filmais la pleine lune et j’ai capturé un disque sombre qui se dirigeait vers le sud en face de la lune. »
Et depuis qu’elle a été postée, elle a reçu beaucoup d’attention, puisqu’elle a été partagée sur divers autres canaux.
Un internaute avance : « Au début, je pensais que ça pouvait être quelque chose d’autre qui se trouvait dans l’atmosphère de la Terre, mais après avoir fait un zoom dessus, on pouvait vraiment voir qu’il semblait être en orbite autour de la Lune. »
Un autre a ajouta : « On dirait que cet (OVNI) va du côté obscur de la lune, est-ce le nôtre ou est-ce le leur ? »
Et un troisième a déclaré : « Super vidéo mon ami. Ils (les OVNIs) sont réels et ils sont là. »
Les observations d’OVNI font régulièrement la une de l’actualité ces derniers temps.
Solar Storms Can Crash Communications, But 3D Models Aid Prediction
Solar Storms Can Crash Communications, But 3D Models Aid Prediction
By Doris Elin Salazar, Space.com Contributor
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, form during geomagnetic storms and are visible at high latitudes. These storms can also pose risks to the power grid.
Credit: Joshua Strang/U.S. Air Force
Communication systems are an integral part of daily life, but the sun can disrupt them by triggering powerful geomagnetic storms. To forecast these disturbances — which could affect GPS systems, air travel, national security and life-saving communications — scientists recently modeled the Earth data in 3D, an upgrade from one-dimensional predecessors.
The sun releases radiation, some of which helps support life on Earth. This includes heat and visible light. But the sun also emits more-dangerous rays, and the blue planet's magnetosphere protects Earthlings from this radiation.
Occasionally, however, intense solar events like flares send high levels of radiation toward Earth. When that radiation arrives and interacts with the magnetosphere, a geomagnetic storm can form. The planet feels its impact in many ways: Sometimes, the northern and southern lights manifest at Earth's poles, but the radiation can also cause communication systems to fail.
This artist illustration depicts events on the sun that can change the conditions in near-Earth space. Space weather begins with an eruption such as a huge burst of light and radiation called a solar flare or a gigantic cloud of solar material called a coronal mass ejection.
Credit: NASA
In a new U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study, a scientific team used Earth data to calculate the voltages along power lines in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. They found that many of these measurements were significantly different from the results that the previous 1D model produced.
"Our study suggests that 3D data of the Earth should be used whenever they are available," Greg Lucas, research physicist at the USGS and lead author of the study, said in arecent statement about the new findings, which were published Feb. 26 in the journal Space Weather.
Using 3D modeling to gain a better understanding of the complex structures below the measurement sites, scientists can better determine which U.S. sites are most vulnerable to blackouts when powerful geomagnetic storms strike.
The Earth's magnetosphere deflects some of the solar wind.
Credit: NASA
In their new study, the USGS looked at the geomagnetic storm event of March 1989 in which the Canadian city of Quebec suffered a blackout. By modeling this scenario in 3D, the USGS scientists found 62 vulnerable sites that the 1D model did not catch.
"This discrepancy between 1D- and 3D-based calculations of the 1989 storm demonstrates the importance of realistic data, rather than relying on previous 1D models, to determine the impact that a geomagnetic storm has on power grids," Lucas said in the statement.
The U.S. Geological Survey is a scientific agency in the Department of the Interior. It researches the environment to provide information about Earth, its processes and any potential hazards they present.
Is something unpredicted going on in the depths of space?
Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this close-up image reveals the beating heart of one of the most historic and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, an exploding star. Celestial bodies like supernovae helped Riess’s team of astronomers gauge distances to determine how quickly the universe is expanding.
Here’s the good news: Astronomers have made the most precise measurement to date of the rate at which the universe is expanding since the Big Bang.
Here’s the possibly unsettling news: The new numbers remain at odds with independent measurements of the early universe’s expansion, which could mean that there is something unknown about the makeup of the universe.
Is something unpredicted going on in the depths of space?
Adam Riess is a Nobel Laureate and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He said:
The community is really grappling with understanding the meaning of this discrepancy.
Riess leads a team of researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the expansion rate of the universe. He shared a Nobel Prize in 2011 for the discovery of the accelerating universe.
The team, which includes researchers from Hopkins and the Space Telescope Science Institute, has used the Hubble Space Telescope over the past six years to refine the measurements of the distances to galaxies, using stars as milepost markers. Those measurements are used to calculate how fast the universe expands with time, a value known as the Hubble constant.
Measurements made by the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, which maps the cosmic microwave background, predicted that the Hubble constant value should now be 42 miles (67 km) per second per megaparsec (3.3 million light-years), and could be no higher than 43 miles (69 km) per second per megaparsec. This means that for every 3.3 million light-years farther away a galaxy is from us, it is moving 42 miles (67 km) per second faster. But Riess’s team measured a value of 45 miles (73 km) per second per megaparsec, indicating galaxies are moving at a faster rate than implied by observations of the early universe.
The Hubble data are so precise that astronomers cannot dismiss the gap between the two results as errors in any single measurement or method. Riess explained:
Both results have been tested multiple ways. Barring a series of unrelated mistakes, it is increasingly likely that this is not a bug but a feature of the universe.
Explaining a Vexing Discrepancy
Riess outlined a few possible explanations for the mismatch, all related to the 95 percent of the universe that is shrouded in darkness. One possibility is that dark energy, already known to be accelerating the cosmos, may be shoving galaxies away from each other with even greater – or growing – strength. This means that the acceleration itself might not have a constant value in the universe but changes over time.
Another idea is that the universe contains a new subatomic particle that travels close to the speed of light. Such speedy particles are collectively called “dark radiation” and include previously known particles like neutrinos, which are created in nuclear reactions and radioactive decays. Unlike a normal neutrino, which interacts by a subatomic force, this new particle would be affected only by gravity and is dubbed a “sterile neutrino.”
Yet another attractive possibility is that dark matter – an invisible form of matter not made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons – interacts more strongly with normal matter or radiation than previously assumed.
Any of these scenarios would change the contents of the early universe, leading to inconsistencies in theoretical models. These inconsistencies would result in an incorrect value for the Hubble constant, inferred from observations of the young cosmos. This value would then be at odds with the number derived from the Hubble observations.
Riess and his colleagues don’t have any answers yet to this vexing problem, but his team will continue to work on fine-tuning the universe’s expansion rate. So far the team, called the Supernova H0 for the Equation of State – nicknamed SH0ES – has decreased the uncertainty to 2.3 percent.
Building a Better Yardstick
The team has been successful in refining the Hubble constant value by streamlining and strengthening the construction of the cosmic distance ladder, a series of interlinked measuring techniques that allow astronomers to gauge distances across billions of light-years.
Astronomers can’t use a tape measure to gauge the distances between galaxies – instead, they use special classes of stars and supernovae as cosmic yardsticks or milepost markers to precisely measure galactic distances.
Among the most reliable used to measure shorter distances are Cepheid variables, which are pulsating stars that brighten and dim at specific rates. Some distant galaxies contain another reliable yardstick, exploding stars called Type Ia supernovae, which flare with uniform brightness and are brilliant enough to be seen from relatively farther away. Using a basic tool of geometry called parallax, which measures the apparent shift of an object’s position due to a change in an observer’s point of view, astronomers can measure the distances to these celestial bodies independent of their brightness.
Previous Hubble observations studied 10 faster-blinking Cepheids located 300 light-years to 1,600 light-years from Earth. The latest Hubble results are based on measurements of the parallax of eight newly analyzed Cepheids in our Milky Way galaxy located about 10 times farther away than any studied previously, residing between 6,000 light-years and 12,000 light-years from Earth.
To measure parallax with Hubble, Riess’s team had to gauge the apparent tiny wobble of the Cepheids due to Earth’s motion around the sun. These wobbles are the size of just 1/100 of a single pixel on the telescope’s camera, which is roughly the apparent size of a grain of sand seen 100 miles (160 km) away.
To ensure the accuracy of the measurements, the astronomers developed a clever method that was not envisioned when Hubble was launched in 1990. The researchers invented a scanning technique in which the telescope measured a star’s position a thousand times a minute every six months for four years. The telescope slowly slews across a stellar target and captures the image as a streak of light. Riess said:
This method allows for repeated opportunities to measure the extremely tiny displacements due to parallax. You’re measuring the separation between two stars, not just in one place on the camera, but over and over thousands of times, reducing the errors in measurement.
Riess’s team compared the distances of galaxies in relation to Earth with the expansion of space measured by the stretching of light from receding galaxies, using the apparent outward velocity of galaxies at each distance to calculate the Hubble constant. Their goal is to further reduce the uncertainty by using data from Hubble and the European Space Agency’s Gaia space observatory, which will measure the positions and distances of stars with unprecedented precision.
Bottom line: Scientists measuring the universe’s rate of expansion say their new numbers remain at odds with independent measurements of the early universe’s expansion, which could mean that there is something unknown about the makeup of the universe.
STORMY SKIES A quintet of cyclones encircles a sixth cyclone at Jupiter’s south pole in this mosaic of infrared images from the Juno spacecraft. Color represents heat coming from below: Yellow is where clouds are thin; red is where they are thick.
JPL-CALTECH/NASA, SWRI, ASI, INAF, IAPS
Bit by bit, Jupiter is revealing its deepest, darkest secrets.
The latest findings are in from the Juno spacecraft. And they unveil the roots of the planet’s storms, what lies beneath the opaque atmosphere and a striking geometric layout of cyclones parked around the gas giant’s north and south poles.
“We’re at the beginning of dissecting Jupiter,” says Juno mission leader Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. And the picture that’s emerging — still just a sketch — topples many preconceived notions. The results appear in four papers in the March 8 Nature.
Juno has been orbiting Jupiter since July 4, 2016, on a mission to map the planet’s interior (SN: 6/25/16, p. 16). The probe loops around once every 53 days, traveling on an elongated orbit that takes the spacecraft from pole to pole and as close as about 4,000 kilometers above the cloud tops.
As it plows through Jupiter’s gravity field, Juno speeds up and slows down in response to shifting masses inside the planet. By measuring these minute accelerations and decelerations, scientists can calculate subtle variations in Jupiter’s gravity and deduce how its mass is distributed. That lets researchers build up a three-dimensional map of the planet’s internal structure. At the same time, Juno snaps pictures in visible and infrared light. While other probes have extensively photographed much of the planet, Juno is the first to get an intimate look at the north and south poles.
“The whole thing is really intriguing, especially when you compare [Jupiter] to other giant planets,” says Imke de Pater, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “They are all unique, it looks like.”
Check out these four surprising new things we’ve learned that make Jupiter one of a kind:
1. Rings of cyclones
Parked at each pole is a cyclone several thousand kilometers wide. That part isn’t surprising. But each of those cyclones is encircled by a polygonal arrangement of similarly sized storms — eight in the north and five in the south. The patterns have persisted throughout Juno’s visit.
“We don’t really understand why that would happen, and why they would collect up there in such a geometric fashion,” Bolton says. “That's pretty amazing that nature is capable of something like that.”
Eyes of the storms
This highest-resolution-yet view of the south pole reveals temperature variation as well as intricate eddies and turbulence around the main cyclones.
A. ADRIANI ET AL/NATURE 2018
2. More than skin deep
Researchers have long debated whether the photogenic bands of clouds that wrap around Jupiter have deep roots or just skim the top of the atmosphere. Juno’s new look shows that the bands penetrate roughly 3,000 kilometers below the cloud tops. That’s 30 times as thick as the bulk of Earth’s atmosphere. While just a tiny fraction of Jupiter’s diameter, that’s deeper than previously thought, Bolton says.
3. Weighty weather
Within those 3,000 kilometers lies what passes for an atmosphere on Jupiter. It’s the stage on which Jupiter’s turbulent weather plays out. The atmosphere alone is about three times as massive as our planet, or 1 percent of Jupiter’s entire mass, researchers estimate.
4. Stuck together
Below the atmosphere, Jupiter is fluid. But unlike most fluids, the planet rotates as if it’s a solid mass. Like kids playing crack-the-whip, atoms of hydrogen and helium figuratively link arms and spin around the planet in unison, scientists report. Earlier results from Juno also indicate there’s no solid core lurking beneath this fluid (SN: 6/24/17, p. 14), so anyone dropped into the planet can expect a terribly long fall.
Many of these results are preliminary, and it’s unclear what it all means for how Jupiter operates. But what’s been learned so far, Bolton says, “is quite different than anybody anticipated.”
TEMPER TANTRUM Proxima Centauri released a gigantic flare on March 24, 2017, fizzling hopes that this nearby star’s Earth-mass planet is habitable.
ROBERTO MOLAR CANDANOSA/CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE, SDO/NASA, JPL/NASA
Proxima Centauri has a temper. Earth’s nearest planet-hosting neighbor released a gigantic flare in March 2017, a new analysis of observations of the star shows. And that’s bad news for the potential for life on the star’s planet, Proxima b.
The star got 1,000 times brighter over 10 seconds before dimming again. That can best be explained by an enormous stellar flare, astronomer Meredith MacGregor of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., and colleagues report February 26 in Astrophysical JournalLetters.
Because Proxima b is so much closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, the flare would have blasted Proxima b with 4,000 times more radiation than Earth typically gets from the sun’s flares. “If there are flares like this at all frequently, then [the exoplanet] is likely not in the best shape,” MacGregor says.
Proxima b was one of the most sought-after sites for finding life outside the solar system. Just four light-years away, it has a mass about the same as Earth’s and probably has temperatures suitable for liquid water (SN: 12/24/16, p. 20). But its star is an M dwarf, a class of small dim stars notoriously prone to flaresthat could rip away their planets’ atmospheres (SN: 6/24/17, p. 18).
Peak energy
Proxima Centauri became 1,000 times brighter and then dimmed again over about two minutes (red lines). The black line refers to normal emission from the star, and the yellow and blue lines are smaller flares.
M. MACGREGOR
MacGregor and her colleagues reanalyzed data from a recent study led by astronomer Guillem Anglada of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Granada, Spain. Anglada and his colleagues had observed Proxima Centauri with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array telescopes in Chile. The team saw extra light that it interpreted as aring of dustanalogous to the solar system’s Kuiper Belt, scattering the light in all directions, the team reported November 15 inAstrophysical Journal Letters.
But Anglada and his colleagues had averaged the amount of light over 10 hours of observations. That smeared out any short-term changes in the star’s brightness — such as a bright flare.
When MacGregor’s team reanalyzed the data, they found that all the excess light came from the same two-minute period on March 24. A massive flare explains all the extra light, she says — none of it was masquerading as a glittering dust ring.
Anglada says he and his colleagues are aware of the March 24 flare and are currently revising their original claim. But he says the flare can’t account for all the extra light, so the dust ring theory might still survive.
Foto boven: een groenachtige staal maangrond in NASA’s Lunar Receiving Laboratory, verzameld in 1971 door astronauten van de Apollo 15
Enkele maanstalen uit het Apollotijdperk (1969 – 1972) zijn destijds verzegeld en opgeborgen voor wanneer de wetenschap en analysemethoden verder zouden staan. Een paar wetenschappers denken dat nu het moment is om de stalen terug te openen.
Tussen 1969 en 1972 brachten de astronauten van de zes Apollomissies in totaal negen verzegelde pakketten met materiaal van het maanoppervlak mee terug naar de aarde. De verzameling maanstenen, sedimentkernen, keien, zand en stof is goed voor 2.200 individuele bodemstalen.
Twee van de grotere verpakkingen bevatten materiaal dat verzameld is tijdens de maanwandeling van de Apollo 17-missie in december 1972. Drie verzegelde pakketten van Apollo 15, 16 en 17 blijven tot op vandaag ongeopend. Volgens verschillende vooraanstaande maanwetenschappers is het nu tijd om daar misschien toch eentje van open te maken.
Apollo 12-astronaut Alan Bean houdt een container met een grondstaal van de maanbodem in de hand. (Foto: NASA)
Nog steeds waardevol
De bodemstalen worden onder specifieke omstandigheden beschermd, bewaard en onderzocht in het Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility, een speciaal gebouw in NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. En de monsters blijven tot op vandaag waardevol voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek: aan de hand van nauwkeurige analyses met een massaspectrometer (die zoekt naar zeer kleine hoeveelheden isotopen, moleculen en molecuulcomplexen) hebben wetenschappers bijvoorbeeld water gedetecteerd in basaltglas dat de Apollo 15 en 17 naar de aarde hadden meegebracht. Dat betekent dat er water in de ondergrond van de maan zit.
Nauwgezet plannen
“De stalen werden indertijd bewaard voor de toekomst, in afwachting tot de technologie en instrumenten verder geëvolueerd zouden zijn. We wilden immers de best mogelijke onderzoeksresultaten verkrijgen”, zegt Ryan Zeigler van NASA. Hij beheert de Apollostalen en is de manager van het Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office (Bureau voor de Verwerving en het Beheer van Ruimtemateriaal) in Houston.
Volgens Zeigler kan enkel een groep experts dergelijke onderzoeken met de nodige nauwkeurigheid plannen en uitvoeren. Zij hebben immers ervaring met het hanteren en analyseren van maanstalen. “Tegenwoordig is er een toegenomen interesse in de maan, en meer specifiek in de vluchtige stoffen (substanties met relatief lage kooktemperaturen – zoals water, zuurstof en methaan) die zich in het oppervlaktemateriaal bevinden. Bovendien bevatten de ongeopende stalen waarschijnlijk belangrijke informatie voor het plannen van toekomstige maanmissies.” Volgens verschillende wetenschappers zou de productiviteit en de waarde van het onderzoek verbeteren naarmate we meer kennis over de vluchtige stoffen van de maan opdoen.
Nieuwe inzichten
Zeigler is niet de enige onderzoeker die graag enkele van de overblijvende Apollostalen zou willen openen. Twee andere experts, namelijk Charles Shearer1 en Clive Neal2 zijn het met hem eens. Samen zullen ze hun standpunt verdedigen op de 49e Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (Conferentie voor de Lunaire en Planetaire Wetenschap), die later in maart zal plaatsvinden. “Ten eerste zullen die ongeopende stalen ons nieuwe wetenschappelijke inzichten verschaffen. Ten tweede zullen we met behulp van die inzichten een werkwijze kunnen bedenken om nieuwe stalen van vluchtige stoffen te verzamelen op de maan, om ze dan vervolgens mee te nemen naar de aarde en te analyseren”, zei Neal tegen Space.com.
Niet geopend of bestudeerd
De reeks ongeopende stalen van de Apollomissies bevat maanmateriaal dat nog nooit onderzocht is. Bovendien zijn de pakketten groter dan wat toekomstige robotmissies zullen meebrengen van de maan. Experts noemen de Apollo 17-stalen zelfs “ongeopende schatkisten”. De astronauten van die missie, Harrison “Jack” Schmitt en Eugene Cernan, konden namelijk langer op de maan blijven en zich er beter voortbewegen omdat ze een maanrover hadden, waarmee ze in totaal 36,9 kilometer hebben afgelegd. Dankzij het voertuig heeft het duo een groot gebied in de Taurus-Littrowvallei kunnen bestrijken en er 110,5 kg aan verschillende soorten stalen kunnen verzamelen. Dat is ongeveer 30 procent van de totale hoeveelheid onderzoeksmateriaal, namelijk 381 kg, die het Apolloprogramma over de jaren vergaard heeft.
De kwaliteit van de verpakking
Er zit echter een addertje onder het gras. De ongeopende pakketten lijken langs de buitenkant wel luchtdicht te zijn, maar het is niet zeker of ze nog steeds zo luchtledig zijn als de atmosfeer op de maan. Toch denkt men dat ze op een degelijke manier afgesloten zijn en dat de inhoud nooit met de aardse atmosfeer in contact gekomen is. Daarom zijn de verpakkingen gebruikt tijdens het Apolloprogramma een verdienstelijke poging om zo veel mogelijk eigenschappen van de maanbodem te bewaren. Sterker nog: ze zullen ook tijdens toekomstige missies gebruikt worden, door mensen en misschien zelfs door robots.
Zeigler en zijn collega’s geloven dat de technologie in de toekomst zal blijven verbeteren en dat de bijkomende waarnemingen en gegevens de wetenschappelijke doelen zullen verleggen. “Daarom willen we graag één enkel monster openen en de twee overige bewaren voor toekomstige generaties maanwetenschappers”, schrijven Shearer, Neal en Zeigler in hun paper die ze tijdens de aankomende conferentie willen voorstellen.
Niet alleen een wetenschappelijke, maar ook een persoonlijke zaak
Er is het afgelopen decennium al veel nagedacht over waarom en hoe we de ongeopende maanstalen zouden moeten onderzoeken. Dat zegt Carlton Allen, voormalige beheerder van ruimtemateriaal bij JSC. Ook hij ondersteunt het idee om de Apollostalen te openen, en wel om de volgende redenen: ten eerste is de technologie nu zo ver gevorderd dat we de inhoud van afgesloten pakketten kunnen onderzoeken zonder ze te openen. En als we ze dan toch willen openen, bestaan er technieken om het risico op aantasting door de aardse atmosfeer te minimaliseren. Ten tweede kunnen we met gespecialiseerde instrumenten microanalyses uitvoeren. Zo kunnen we spoorgassen en vluchtige stoffen, zoals het waterspoor in basaltglas, heel nauwkeurig onderzoeken. Ten derde zitten er nog veel gaten in onze kennis over de maan. We weten bijvoorbeeld nog lang niet alles over het bestaan en de geschiedenis van water en ijs onder het maanoppervlak.
Ten slotte is het volgens Allen ook een persoonlijke zaak. “Sommige astronauten die de stalen verzameld hebben, technici die de sedimentkernen geopend hebben en wetenschappers die de stalen destijds onderzocht hebben, zijn nog steeds professioneel actief bij ons. Het belang van die onvervangbare menselijke kennis mogen we niet over het hoofd zien.”
1. Charles ShearerVan het Institute of Meteoritics, Department of Earth and Planetary Science (University of New Mexico)
2. Clive NealVan het Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences (University of Notre Dame, Indiana)
I’m not kidding that a few years ago, I wholeheartedly believed aliens were visiting our planet. I believed that religions all bore a resemblance to each other because of aliens having visited the earth in ancient times. I even witnessed a UFO myself. But nowadays, I’m having a crisis. You see, I no longer believe that UFOs are alien-controlled ships. I no longer believe that we’ve been visited. I don’t believe those alien abductions are real. And I don’t believe aliens guided our ancestors in ancient times. So what the hell happened?
First of all, I’m a science guy. I have a degree in engineering and I do IT work as a full-time career. As a result, my education and work experience have taught me the rules of critical thinking. They’ve taught me about drawing conclusions from evidence. They’ve also taught me the dangers of searching for evidence solely to support an existing conclusion. After writing about UFO encounters and researching alternative explanations for the past couple years, very rarely does something come up that isn’t explainable.
I’m not a closed-minded person, in fact, I’m open to the idea that we’re being visited. Unfortunately, a glowing ball in the sky that you can’t identify just isn’t enough to convince me. Alien abduction stories that are clearly cases of sleep paralysis simply don’t convince me. And the History Channel show Ancient Aliensdefinitely can’t convince me.
Witnesses Too Eager to Believe
The desire to believe is one thing consistent in all of my research on UFO sightings. This desire creates a bias in the witness that’s undeniable. I’ve seen witnesses who quickly come to a conclusion simply based on their existing beliefs.
When a vibrant and beautiful aurora borealis appeared over Siberia, one witness stated, “It’s a gap in the space-time continuum”. This witness didn’t take any measurements. He didn’t measure any gravitational changes. He didn’t check his watch speed to see if it changed. All he did was look up in the sky. He literally just made it up because he believed those things happen. His quote appeared in the Daily Mail which contained many such quotes from locals who observed this totally natural phenomenon.
A deliberate hoax perpetrated on YouTube
Lots of Deliberate Hoaxes
The fact is I’ve found a ton of deliberate hoaxes when it comes to UFOs & aliens. While I love and appreciate a good mystery, deliberate hoaxes are the worst. Some of the best footage of aliens and UFOs has turned out to be fake. Remember the alien autopsy? Fake. The Adamski videos? Fake. Crop Circles? Fake.
I totally understand that the existence of hoaxes doesn’t mean there are no real mysteries out there. But their existence and predominance should make anyone take pause before assuming they’re reporting and sharing a real encounter.
This is a topic that’s always infuriated me. UFOlogists and researchers regularly share and propagate known hoaxes because they haven’t done their due diligence. It’s the single greatest detriment to the ‘science’ of UFOlogy. What’s worse is they aren’t even likely to call out others who do it either.
The echo chambers created by the UFO community have made it very difficult to discern the truth from fantasy. If you don’t go along with the status quo, you will likely be ostracised. Consequently, I find myself much more critical of reports. My threshold for proof has become very high. But at the end of that day, when you want to talk about something as extraordinary as alien visitation, shouldn’t the standard for proof be very high? We are, after all, talking about our fate as a species.
So, can you convince me? I want your stories, your evidence, and your experiences.
You Know That Aliens are in Control, According to Physicist
You know that Aliens are in control, we can hear their voices according to most of the popular and authetic physicists. One of the world’s most respected theoretical physicists Michio Kaku has predicted that humans will make contact with an alien civilisation within this century. While he doesn’t know if we’ll be able to talk back to them by then, Kaku thinks that humans will detect aliens before 2100 by listening in to their radio communications.
He gave the prediction on reddit last week during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) question-and-answer session. “Dr Kaku, if we make contact with alien civilizations, then what? And how will we talk to them?” asked redditor MalachiNorris.
Kaku responded: “Let me stick my neck out. I personally feel that within this century, we will make contact with an alien civilization, by listening in on their radio communications. But talking to them will be difficult, since they could be tens of light years away. So, in the meantime, we must decipher their language to understand their level of technology. Are they Type I, II, or III??? And what are their intentions. Are they expansive and aggressive, or peaceful.”
The “types” of civilisations he’s referring to represent the three categories in the Kardashev scale – a scale that measures a civilisation’s technological advancement based on the amount of energy they are able to use for communication. For reference, humans aren’t quite a Type I civilisation as yet, as that would require learning to harvest every ounce of energy from their home planet, including all solar, thermal, oceanic energy, and more.
As Kaku added to his response: “Another possibility is that they land on the White House lawn and announce their existence. But I think that is unlikely, since we would be like forest animals to them, i.e. not worth communicating with.”
Ooh, burn.
Kaku’s not the first scientist to suggest we’re not far off making contact with extraterrestrial life.
Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer with the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute has placed a wager we’ll find signs of alien life within just 20 years. Even Stephen Hawking recently said he’s “more convinced than ever that we are not alone” and warned humanity to stop reaching out to aliens before it’s too late.
Hawking is involved in the Breakthrough Listen project, which will scan planets around the nearest million stars for signs of life within radio signals – including Earth-like planet Gliese 832c. “One day we might receive a signal from a planet like Gliese 832c, but we should be wary of answering back,” said Hawking.
Shostak, Hawking, and Kaku are all predicting that alien contact will come through radio waves, a narrow frequency band of electromagnetic waves that are often used for long-distance communication. Scientists are so focussed on this small part of the electromagnetic spectrum because it stands out from the naturally occurring background noise in the Universe, which typically extends across a much wider frequency range.
Radio telescopes around the world are constantly scanning the Universe for any signs of life, and although we’ve had some close calls, we haven’t seen anything as yet to suggest aliens are out there. But according to the Drake equation, based on the sheer number of stars out there, it’s highly unlikely that we’re the only life in the Universe.
Alternatively, another alien civilisation might end up detecting our radio wave communications first. If that’s the case, let’s just hope they’re friendly.
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AI Will Colonize the Galaxy by the 2050s, According to the “Father of Deep Learning”
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AI Will Colonize the Galaxy by the 2050s, According to the “Father of Deep Learning”
IN BRIEF
Jürgen Schmidhuber asserts that, by 2050, there will be trillions of self-replicating robot factories on the asteroid belt.
In a few million years, robots will naturally explore the galaxy out of curiosity, setting their own goals without much human interaction.
NO LONGER JUST OUR JOBS
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), perhaps very few people can claim they fathered a huge part of it. One such man is Jürgen Schmidhuber. Schmidhuber is considered the”father of very deep learning,” and the pioneer of deep learning neural networks. In fact, he built the foundations for many of the AI systems we find in our smartphones today.
If anyone can predict how far AI will go in the next couple years, it’s him.
During a talk at WIRED2016, Schmidhuber presented the future of AI as something beyond just taking over jobs. “In 2050 there will be trillions of self-replicating robot factories on the asteroid belt,” he told the audience. “A few million years later, AI will colonize the galaxy.”
Schmidhuber believes AI will play a crucial role in the way we will gather resources, most abundantly found in space. Orbital robot factories will be (un)manned by AI, capable of self-replication and space exploration. These AI will be scientists, he says, and in a few million years, will naturally explore the galaxy out of curiosity, setting their own goals. “Humans are not going to play a big role there, but that’s ok,” says Schmidhuber.
AI GETS BETTER AND BETTER
Can AI really do all that?
Right now, AI can already do quite a bit. In particular, deep learning neural networks — designed to mimic the human brains neural connections, and capable of learning by continuous exposure to tons of data — can execute speech and image recognition fairly well. They can even navigate and drive, carry out medical diagnoses, and engage in pharmaceutical research.
“Networks figure out over time which inputs are important and which aren’t,” explains Schmidhuber. “We train a stupid neural network to do the same as a doctor, based on lots of training examples. It becomes as good or better than the best competitor and rivals human performance now.”
In other words, we already have AI that can learn, becoming more and more effective. “Curiosity and creativity, coming up with new experiments so they can learn more about how the world works – this makes it so they become better problem solvers and improve their skills repertoire.”
Human AI seems to be on the not-so-distant horizon. As Schmidhuber puts it: “It took just a few million years [of evolution] to get to human intelligence, and computers are faster.”
The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?
The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?
We have no idea what’s behind these weird incidents because we’re not investigating.
By Christopher Mellon
Christopher Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He is a private equity investor and an adviser to the To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science.
US Government releases footage of Super fast UFO captured by Navy Jet
In December, the Defense Department declassified two videos documenting encounters between U.S. Navy F-18 fighters and unidentified aircraft. The first video captures multiple pilots observing and discussing a strange, hovering, egg-shaped craft, apparently one of a “fleet” of such objects, according to cockpit audio. The second shows a similar incident involving an F-18 attached to the USS Nimitz carrier battle group in 2004.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest .
A third declassified video, released by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science , a privately owned media and scientific research company to which I’m an adviser, reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015.
Watch: Military jet video tracks high-speed UFO
(To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science)
Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization?
Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
I served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I know from numerous discussions with Pentagon officials over the past two years that military departments and agencies treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation. A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of “anomalous” aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data.
Meanwhile, reports from different services and agencies remain largely ignored and unevaluated inside their respective bureaucratic stovepipes. There is no Pentagon process for synthesizing all the observations the military is making. The current approach is equivalent to having the Army conduct a submarine search without the Navy. It is also reminiscent of the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI before Sept. 11, 2001, when each had information on the hijackers that they kept to themselves. In this instance, the truth may ultimately prove benign, but why leave it to chance?
(A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to requests from The Washington Post for comment, but in December, the military confirmed the existence of a program to investigate UFOs and said it had stopped funding the research in 2012.)
The military personnel who are encountering these phenomena tell remarkable stories. In one example, over the course of two weeks in November 2004, the USS Princeton, a guided-missile cruiser operating advanced naval radar, repeatedly detected unidentified aircraft operating in and around the Nimitz carrier battle group, which it was guarding off the coast of San Diego. In some cases, according to incident reports and interviews with military personnel, these vehicles descended from altitudes higher than 60,000 feet at supersonic speeds, only to suddenly stop and hover as low as 50 feet above the ocean. The United States possesses nothing capable of such feats.
On at least two occasions, F-18 fighters were guided to intercept these vehicles and were able to verify their location, appearance and performance. Notably, these encounters occurred in broad daylight and were independently monitored by radars aboard multiple ships and aircraft. According to naval aviators I have spoken with at length, the vehicles were roughly 45 feet long and white. Yet these mysterious aircraft easily sped away from and outmaneuvered America’s front-line fighters without a discernible means of propulsion.
From my work with To the Stars Academy, which seeks to raise private funds to investigate incidents like the 2004 Nimitz encounter, I know they continue to occur, because we are being approached by military personnel who are concerned about national security and frustrated by how the Defense Department is handling such reports. I am also familiar with the evidence as a former Pentagon intelligence official and a consultant who began researching the issue after the Nimitz incident was brought to my attention. On several occasions, I have met with senior Pentagon officials, and at least one followed up and obtained briefings confirming incidents such as the Nimitz case. But nobody wants to be “the alien guy” in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.
If the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, so is the paralysis of the U.S. government in the face of such evidence. Sixty years ago, when the Soviet Union put the first manmade satellite in orbit, Americans recoiled at the idea of being technologically surpassed by a dangerous rival, and the furor over Sputnik ultimately produced the space race. Americans responded vigorously, and a little more than a decade later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. If these craft mean that Russia, China or some other nation is concealing an astonishing technological breakthrough to quietly extend its lead, surely we should respond as we did then. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent chest-thumping claims about propulsion breakthroughs are not pure braggadocio. Or, if these craft really aren’t from Earth, then the need to figure out what they are is even more urgent.
Lately, media coverage of the issue of unidentified aerial vehicles has focused on an expired $22 million congressional earmark for Bigelow Aerospace, a contractor with ties to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.). The money mostly funded research and analysis by that contractor, without participation from the Air Force, NORAD or other key military organizations. The real issue, though, is not a long-gone earmark, helpful though it may have been, but numerous recent incidents involving the military and violations of U.S. airspace. It is time to set aside taboos regarding “UFOs” and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.
Within a roughly $50 billion annual intelligence budget, money is not the issue. Existing funds would easily cover what’s needed to look into the incidents. What we lack above all is recognition that this issue warrants a serious collection and analysis effort. To make headway, the task needs to be assigned to an official with the clout to compel collaboration among disparate and often quarrelsome national security bureaucracies. A truly serious effort would involve, among other things, analysts able to review infrared satellite data, NORAD radar databases, and signals and human intelligence reporting. Congress should require an all-source study by the secretary of defense while promoting research into new forms of propulsion that might explain how these vehicles achieve such extraordinary power and maneuverability.
As with Sputnik, the national security implications of these incidents are concerning — but the scientific opportunities are thrilling. Who knows what perils we may avoid or opportunities we might identify if we follow the data? We cannot afford to avert our eyes, given the risk of strategic surprise. The future belongs to not only the physically brave but also the intellectually agile.
On February 28 of this year, the FBI posted to its website, The Vault, its now-declassified file on Stanley Kubrick. He was the director of numerous movies, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, and Eyes Wide Shut. The file only amounts to four pages, so there isn’t that much said about him. We are told, however, that “…Kubrick was an old chess-playing friend of [Deleted] who has been the subject of a security-type investigation conducted by this Bureau. [Deleted] reportedly had a large circle of communist associates.”
What’s more intriguing, though, are the references in the file to a controversial movie of 1964, Seven Days in May. It’s an absorbing, thought-provoking story that tells of an attempted military coup to take control of the U.S. Government. The authors of the novel that the movie was based on were Charles W. Bailey II (who died in 2012 at the age of eighty-two) and Fletcher Knebel who, in 1960, wrote a chapter on JFK for a book titled Candidate 1960.
Seven Days in May starred a number of major movie-stars of that era, including Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Fredric March, Martin Balsam, and Edmond O’Brien. In the story, Lancaster’s character of General James Mattoon Scott secretly initiates a plan to take over the elected U.S. Government (run by President Jordan Lyman and played by March). General Scott sees President Lyman’s plans to enter into a nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union as weak and ineffectual and a danger to U.S. national security and to the American people. The battle is then on, with General Scott trying to ensure the coup succeeds and President Lyman doing his utmost to stop it. But, why is Seven Days in May referenced in the Kubrick file? Let’s see.
On March 20, 1964, the FBI recorded the following in a Confidential-level memo: “Admiral [Arleigh A.] Burke, U.S. Navy (Ret.), good friend of Bureau, has contacted Assistant Director Sullivan to state that movie ‘Seven Days in May,’ which tells of abortive plot of military clique to seize control of U.S. Government. Burke is in receipt of letters concerning recent attacks on military. One letter alleges communist connections of movie’s cast, namely, Fredric March, Burt Lancaster [deleted] and Ava Gardner.”
The document continues: “Another letter cites two new books, ‘The Passion of the Hawks,’ by Tristram Coffin, and ‘The Military Establishment,’ by John Swomley, and another new movie, ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,’ produced by Stanley Kubrick, all of which derogate military.” That’s how Seven Days in May came to be referenced in the Kubrick file. And, although there is little more on Kubrick, there is certainly more on Seven Days in May.
The FBI’s memo continues: “Fletcher Knebel, one of co-authors of ‘Seven Days of May,’ criticized Director in ‘Look’ magazine in 1955. Fredrick March and wife were subjects of closed security cases alleging them to have been Communist Party members and active in communist fronts in past…Burke stated that he had seen the film, which portrays every military and civilian leader in it as a man of great weakness, and he feels that the picture is detrimental to the Nation. His appraisal of the picture has appeared in the press, and, as a result, he said, he has received several letters.” The document also refers to one of Admiral Burke’s correspondents as stating that Burt Lancaster was a “zealous Moscow stalwart.”
The FBI concluded with these words: “It is entirely understandable why a military leader of Admiral Burke’s stature would find the theme of ‘Seven Days in May’ — even though it is pure fiction — offensive because it does tarnish the image of the American military.”
In some ways, at least, this kind of reminds me of how the military wasn’t too happy when Area 51 was portrayed in 1996’s Independence Day. This new file provides some interesting insight into the connection between Hollywood and government agencies.
That’s not something you’d expect to hear a highly-trained Navy pilot say.
“Oh my gosh dude!”
That doesn’t quite sound like the vernacular of another military officer responding as he viewed what the pilot saw. Yet both of those quotes come from a newly-released Pentagon video of an encounter in 2015 between a US Navy F/A 18 jet and an unidentified flying object off the east coast of the U.S. What’s even more shocking is that the video was not released by the Pentagon but in an opinion piece in the Washington Post by a member of Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy.
“Oh my gosh dude!”
That’s the edited-for-family-publications reaction by almost everyone after reading the op-ed written by Christopher Mellon, a well-heeled (member of the Mellon family of Gulf Oil and Mellon Bank fame), former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and of the Security and Information Operations. Mellon wrote the opinion and exposed the video (see the video here) as an advisor to the To the Stars media company chartered in part to pressure governments to release what secret information they allegedly have on UFO and extraterrestrial encounters.
“If the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, so is the paralysis of the U.S. government in the face of such evidence.”
The purpose of Mellon’s essay is not just to expose the video but to shame the Pentagon and the U.S. government for not even investigating this and “more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015.” Mellon laments that these incidents could be encounters with military aircraft (Russian or from another country) far sophisticated to ours or they could be alien spacecrafts. However, he warns not to hold your breath waiting for a conclusive answer on which one it is because …
“Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
Mellon blames the problem not on money (he says there’s roughly $50 billion in the annual intelligence budget) but on government bureaucracy …
“Meanwhile, reports from different services and agencies remain largely ignored and unevaluated inside their respective bureaucratic stovepipes. There is no Pentagon process for synthesizing all the observations the military is making.”
… and on attitudes.
“But nobody wants to be “the alien guy” in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.”
To get past the second impediment, Mellon thinks we need to combine the military fears and scientific excitement of the early space program.
“As with Sputnik, the national security implications of these incidents are concerning — but the scientific opportunities are thrilling. Who knows what perils we may avoid or opportunities we might identify if we follow the data? We cannot afford to avert our eyes, given the risk of strategic surprise. The future belongs to not only the physically brave but also the intellectually agile.”
Does our current government have people who are “physically brave but also the intellectually agile”? Should these investigations – and the data associated with them – be turned over to the private sector instead? Or to To The Stars? Does Mellon have enough money to fund it himself? How much do you need to answer the question …
Either space is weirder than we thought, or NASA ripped off The Fantastic Four. According to a study published by the space agency, space travel can permanently alter your DNA. Identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly were observed over the course of a year after Scott touched down on Earth after a yearlong stay on the International Space Station. The Twins Study is part of an ongoing NASA effort called the Human Research Project which studies the effects of space on the human body in preparation for eventual manned missions to Mars and other prolonged trips through the void.
Identical twins have almost identical DNA, which makes them ideal candidates for studying the mental and physical health effects of space: any changes in the space-faring twin’s physical health would have to be caused by an outside force and not due to natural variation. Identical twins are rare, and astronauts even rarer; luckily NASA has plenty of the latter and two of the former. It was Scott Kelly himself who suggested NASA use him and his brother Mark as test subjects.
What they found is quite strange. While many of the changes to Scott’s physiology returned to normal soon after returning to Earth, they found permanent changes as well. It seems that 7% of Scott Kelly’s DNA has been altered permanently. NASA has speculated on the existence of a “space gene,” which might be activated by conditions in space, causing changes in DNA. NASA says the changes to Scott’s DNA “related to his immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.” Whether these changes were seen as positive or negative were not said. We may have an answer if the retired astronaut suddenly begins a career as a vigilante superhero, or if it turns out he’s the mothman.
NASA, don’t tell this guy about space genes.
Predictions for the Twins Study were also proven wrong. Telomeres are components of chromosomes that shorten with age, and NASA expected the radiation of space to accelerate that shortening. They found, however, that Scott’s telomeres actually lengthened during his stay on the ISS. They returned to normal within two hours of his return to Earth, however, squashing any hope there might have been for finding the space-fountain of youth.
There were other findings, too. While on the ISS, Scott’s gut bacteria changed dramatically. It returned to normal once back on solid ground, and scientists do not know whether it was differences in the food he ate or environmental factors, such as gravity and radiation, which were responsible. NASA also studied Scott’s mental abilities. Being in space had no effect on his cognition, yet after returning to Earth his mental speed and accuracy began showing slight decreases. Perhaps this is due to returning from a year of peace and quiet in space to a life of medical tests and interviews on terra firma.
Scott Kelly went from looking at this every day to being constantly asked about his space genes.
While NASA may be furthering the goals of the human species and finding us a way off this rock, they apparently don’t have the best bedside manners. Scott says that he found out about the results of the study the same way as everyone else.
“I did read in the newspaper the other day… that 7 percent of my DNA had changed permanently,” Kelly said. “And I’m reading that, I’m like, ‘Huh, well that’s weird.’”
The full results of the study will be released later in 2018.
AFPHet Pentagon doet niet voldoende onderzoek naar de oorsprong van ufo's, vindt Christopher Mellon.
Ufo’s moeten serieus genomen worden. Daar pleit Christopher Mellon voor, die nog onder Clinton en Bush voor de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst werkte. Mellon doet zijn beklag in een opiniestuk in de Washington Post naar aanleiding van het vrijgeven van nieuwe beelden met een mysterieus vliegend object boven de Atlantische Oceaan.
De clip duurt twee minuten en is sensationeel. Legerpiloten filmden een ufo vanuit een F-18 van de US Navy, die op een hoogte van 25.000 voet vloog. “What the fuck is dat ding?” roept een piloot. De video werd online gepost door de To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, een privaat onderzoeksbedrijf.
De vrijgegeven beelden werden in 2015 geschoten aan de Amerikaanse Oostkust. Hoe het onderzoekscentrum eraan geraakte, zei het niet. Maar iedereen zou ze kunnen opvragen. Vorig jaar werden twee gelijkaardige video’s openbaar gemaakt.
Volgens Christopher Mellon vormen de video’s “het bewijs voor het bestaan van vliegtuigen die ver boven alles staan waar de VS of haar bondgenoten over beschikken”. Mellon is adviseur bij de To the Stars Acacemy en werkte voor de geheime dienst onder Bill Clinton en George W. Bush. Hij vindt dat de overheid te weinig onderzoek doet naar dat soort bewijsmateriaal: “Als het een mysterie is waar die vliegtuigen vandaan komen, dan is de passiviteit van de overheid tegenover zulke bewijzen dat ook”.
Hij verwijt het leger en de overheid dat ze “dat soort incidenten beschouwen als geïsoleerde feiten en niet als onderdeel van een patroon dat op een ernstige manier aandacht en onderzoek vraagt”. Hij vergelijkt die houding in de Washington Post met de inspanningen van de CIA en de FBI tegen terrorisme vóór 9/11, toen beide diensten wel informatie hadden over de kapers maar die voor zich hielden en niet met elkaar deelden.
Mellon vraagt zich af of “Rusland of China technologisch haasje-over doen met de VS” dan wel dat de beelden “het bewijs kunnen zijn van een buitenaardse beschaving”. Hij schrijft dat Poetins recente gepoch over een Russische doorbraak in voortstuwingstechnieken misschien wel niet zomaar bluf is. Mellons besluit: “Helaas hebben we geen idee, omdat we zelfs geen antwoorden zoeken.”
US Department of DefenceIn 2004 werd een mysterieus vliegend object met een ongezien acceleratievermogen en zonder tekenen van voortstuwing gespot voor de kust van San Diego, zo maakte het Pentagon recent bekend.
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US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet Records UFO Over East Coast Waters, 2015, Newly Released! UFO Sighting News.
US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet Records UFO Over East Coast Waters, 2015, Newly Released! UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: 2015
Location of sighting: East Coast of USA
Here is another great military report that contains some raw footages of a NAVY Super Hornet recording a UFO moving at high speed over the water. It had no wings, no blades and no known method of propulsion. It was diamond shaped, having four sides. Its a welcome sight for me to see raw US military footage. Absolutely 100% evidence that aliens exist and are monitoring everything and anything on this planet. However, I have noticed that UFOs frequent aircraft more than other objects. The tech or the people are more easily accessible to them.
Scott C. Waring
Video states:
GO FAST is the third of three official USG videos selected for release after official review by multiple government organizations. While To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science was the first to obtain a copy, it should be available to any member of the press or public via the Freedom of Information Act. This footage was captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet using the Raytheon ATFLIR Pod that was being operated by a highly trained aerial observer and weapons system operator whom the government has spent millions of dollars to train. Go Fast reveals a Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast of the United States in 2015 and the object in view remains unidentified. Read further analysis of what is being observed in Go Fast by our team of experts including additional videos and reports on our community of interest: coi.tothestarsacademy.com. It is the mission of To The Stars Academy to support underfunded areas of research that could lead to a better understanding of scientific anomalies and breakthrough discoveries in technology.
UFO with three green lights UFO sightings 2017 over the city UFO 2017 mp4 (Video)
A video of what appears to be an apparition hitting a Hong Kong taxi has gone viral on the social media
The video, posted by Hung Leungon his Facebook page, was captured by a dashboard cam of a car following the taxi on a narrow road and shows a blast of fog for a split-second before it blown into the left side of the taxi, reports thesundaily.my
Then the taxi swerves off the road to the right and nearly collides with a tree.
The driver in the vehicle behind the taxi can be heard freaking out in the 23-sec clip.
Screenshots from the video clearly show the blast of fog that looks like a supernatural being that collided with the car. Below the video of the very strange phenomenon.
Live Fox News Broadcast Shows Cluster Of UFOs Dashing Around
Live Fox News Broadcast Shows Cluster Of UFOs Dashing Around
A live news broadcast in the United States has become a controversial one after a cluster of UFOs were spotted, which has let some alien enthusiasts believe aliens have arrived on Earth.
Many viewers, who tuned in at 4:43 am, on Fox 6 News noticed a bizarre astronomical display on February 28. They were treated with the appearance of series of bright lights dashing around a live feed of Milwaukee.
At least ten bright dots were moving in the distance, glowing, and then disappearing before shining a light again.
The viewers were not the only one who got surprised as even the man, and woman presenters of the show appeared to be equally surprised of the strange activity.
The female broadcaster initially thought of fireworks but later confirmed they were not. She then asked if those were aliens.
The male counterpart said that he also saw the strange activity and added that it kept getting weirder by the second. He explained that it looked like they were sticking around.
Authorities later claimed that seagulls were responsible for the mysterious darting formation of lights. They explained that they were just seagulls reflecting light.
However, many viewers of the video were not buying that excuse. In a video uploaded to YouTube channel Suspect Sky, one viewer said that they watched it 500 times and those were not seagulls.
Another user said that tiny seagulls at that distance could only be seen with binoculars and even then it would be challenging with the limited light.
British Popular Singer Robbie Williams Recalls Bizarre UFO Sighting
British Popular Singer Robbie Williams Recalls Bizarre UFO Sighting
British pop star Robbie Williams has experienced an exciting ride of his life and often shared details of his alcoholic and drug addictions in the past. And the world-renown star, 44, has recently shared his bizarre experiences that he referred to as phenomena that can’t be explained.
He revealed they had taken place in America and the United Kingdom. He described them as intriguing and powerful.
On one UFO sighting, the Let Me Entertain You hit-maker said that he had seen one right over him and he could have hit the mysterious thing with a tennis ball if he has it at that time.
The Take That boy band member’s admission has shocked everybody who follows the singer. Robbie confidently said that no substance was involved at all.
Last year, he also spoke the experience saying that he has seen stuff that he can’t explain and he had a UFO right over his head hovering less than 150 feet.
Robbie is married to American actress Ayda Field, and they have two children.
Robbie had a terrifying health issue late last year.
The singer was found with abnormalities in his brain, prompting him to cancel his final two European tour dates in September 2017 after spending seven days in intensive care.
Newly-released video of a mysterious object streaking over the Atlantic Ocean shows the Pentagon needs to take UFOs seriously, a researcher says.
The sensational two-minute clip captured by a camera aboard a US Navy F/A 18 jet flying at 25,000 feet wowed military personnel.
“What the f— is that thing?” shouted the pilot in the video posted online by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a private research company.
“Oh my gosh dude!” exclaimed the jet’s weapons systems officer
The video was shot off the East Coast in 2015. To the Stars Academy did not say how it obtained the declassified footage, but said others could obtain it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, “appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies,” writes Christopher Mellon, a former defense official in the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations and an adviser to To the Stars Academy.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Mellon reasoned that if the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, “so is the paralysis of the US government in the face of such evidence.”
Mellon, who served as an intelligence official for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, charged that military and department agencies “treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation.”
Mellon compared the government’s current approach to UFOs to the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI prior to 9/11.
He wondered if the US has been “technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China” or might these videos “be evidence of some alien civilization. Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
The South Pole’s landscape is covered in layers upon layers of snow.
But conspiracy theorists have long believed that the blanket of white is hiding something below.
Here, Daily Star Online looks at some of the most bizarre “sightings” ever found on Google Earth.
Pyramids ‘clue to ancient civilisation’
Startling pictures of an apparent pyramid in Antarctica stunned scientists around the world after going viral back in 2016.
One of three structures that have apparently been found, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Boffins have long believed the freezing climate was much warmer thousands of years ago.
Dr Vanessa Bowman, of the British Antarctic Survey, previously said: “Go back 100 million years ago and Antarctica was covered in lush rainforests similar to those that exist in New Zealand today.”
The Google Earth images sparked claims from the likes of alien enthusiasts Blake and Brett Cousins, that they were, in fact, proof of ancient civilisations.
But another theory is that it could be a natural phenomenon known as nunatak – when mountain peaks appear up just above massive glaciers.
GETTY/GOOGLE EARTH
MYSTERY: Google Earth may have uncovered hidden secrets in Antarctica
Cave ‘reveals Nazi base’
A long-standing conspiracy theory around Antarctica is that it was the site of a secret base used by the Nazis during World War Two.
The Germans did visit the continent to set up a whaling base during the period and also scouted for a place for a naval base, but nothing came of it.
But that hasn’t stopped scores of people being convinced they have found proof of the elusive bases.
Valentin Degtyarev claimed to have found a cave on the side of a mountain which could show the opening to such bases.
He wrote in his blog that a group of top Nazis could have been evacuated there, adding “not all the perpetrators were found and executed”.
Colin Summerhayes of the University of Cambridge, however, rules out the theory as “entirely fallacious”.
Heat map uncovers ‘secret government base’
Renowned conspiracy theorist Tyler Glockner – of YouTube channel secureteam10 – claimed last month to have found a top-secret multi-level government.
He used the Global Heat Map – which had already revealed the location of US military bases around the world – to appear to show heat signatures from an isolated location in Antarctica.
But when he switched to Google Earth of the same area, nothing was seen apart from mountains and snow.
That led him to claim “it is definitely underground”, adding: “While there are many publicly known camps or bases or stations scattered around Antarctica, I firmly believe there is more of a mystery there, there are things underground which we are not being told about.”
However, one viewer pointed out that if it were underground, there would be no GPS signal and therefore no location tracking.
UFO ‘crash site’
Tyler was at it again last week when he spotted what he thought was a crash-landed spaceship on South Georgia Island, a remote British Overseas territory near Antarctica.
Using Google Earth, he pointed out an unknown mass that appeared to have skidded “1,000 metres” before grinding to a halt.
It was directly in front of the 10,000ft tall Mount Paget – where there was “some damage” to the side of the mountain – and Tyler added that some had suggested the object had “fallen from the skies”.
But Dr Richard Waller, a senior lecturer in physical geography at Keele University, quickly rubbished claims the object was from outer-space.
Instead, he told Mail Online it was likely to be from part of a glacier that collapsed after an avalanche at Mount Paget.
The truth, according to David Duchovny at least, is out there. All we need to do, we're told, is keep watching the skies.
Well, believe it or not, that might well have paid off. Reports from the United States (of course) have come in that some claim to be the "best evidence ever" of extra-terrestrial life. Take a look at the video and make up your own mind.
An alleged UFO was spotted in the night sky and captured on camera, leading internet theorists to identify it as the alleged TR-38, a top-secret aircraft that some think is a surveillance plane developed by the United States Air Force and reverse engineered from alien technology.
Given that the last paragraph included "alleged", "some think", "some claim" and "internet theorists", you can make up your own mind on whether I think it's credible or not.
The folk who posted the clip on the internet need no convincing.
"On the 26 of January this amazing video was shot from a dashboard camera," reads the blurb under the video on YouTube.
"The footage captured a TR-3B UFO in mid-air and it might be the best evidence ever of the TR-3B UFO ever. The triangular object is coming in from the left of the screen and you can see that this object doesn't have any blinking lights like a normal airplane should have. It is flying at a very low altitude which is very strange for a normal airplane."
The theory behind the TR-38 is that it can go up into space and then come back into the atmosphere, allowing the US government to secretly keep an eye on us all.
Furthermore, it is alleged that they were made in highly confidential military bases such as Area 51, close to Las Vegas, and are constructed from technology recovered from aliens.
There is, of course, another theory that holds that it was just a plane and that everyone should calm down about the surprisingly explainable circumstances of a plane flying in the air.
The true experts on this, YouTube commenters, were not to be discouraged.
"I believe this to be reversed engineering from NASA or the Military Industrial Complex," wrote one rocket scientist. "Most objects we see in our skies nowadays are human made, but there is a small percentage that are unexplained."
Another wrote: "Of course it's a TR-3B, the US built about 60 of them. It's powered by nuclear energy and it's a military spy plane:"
Suppose that just about settles it then. I for one welcome our new alien overlords.
“There have been 10,000 Generations Before Us --Ours Could be the First to Discover Extraterrestrial Life” --NASA
“There have been 10,000 Generations Before Us --Ours Could be the First to Discover Extraterrestrial Life” --NASA
In 1960, the astrophysicist Francis Drake pointed a radio telescope situated in Green Bank, West Virginia, in the direction of two Sun-like stars 11 light years away. His faith: to pick up a signal that would verify gifted life might be out there. Fifty years have departed by since Drake’s pioneering SETI experiment, and we’ve yet to perceive the aliens. But because of a host of discoveries, the idea that life might survive outside Earth now appears more believable than ever. For one, we now know that life can flourish in the most extreme surroundings here on Earth — from deep-sea methane seep and Antarctic sea ice to acidic rivers and our thirstiest deserts.
We’ve also discovered that liquid water isn’t exclusive to our planet. Saturn’s moon “Enceladus” and Jupiter’s moons “Ganymede” and “Europa” have large oceans underneath their icy surfaces. Even Saturn’s largest moon “Titan” could seed some kind of life in its lakes and rivers of methane-ethane. And then there’s the finding of exo-planets, with more than 1800 alien worlds outside our Solar System recognized so far. In fact, astrophysicists think there may be a million and millions of planets in our galaxy alone, one-fifth of which may be like Earth. As Carl Sagan excellently said: “The Universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”
Now some researchers trust the hunt for life outside Earth may well repay in our lifespan. “There have been 10K generations of humans before us. Ours could be the first to know,” said SETI astrophysicist Seth Shostak.
But what can occur once we do? How would we deal with the discovery? And what would be its influence on humanity? This overwhelming question was the focus of a meeting organized last September by the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Library of Congress. For two days, a group of researchers, historians, philosophers and theologians from round the world discussed how we might prepare for the preordained discovery of life — microbial or intelligent — somewhere else in our Universe. The conference was hosted by Steven J. Dick, the 2nd yearly Chair in Astrobiology at the Library of Congress.
Of course, the influence of discovery will rest on on the specific situation. In a talk titled “Current Approaches to Finding Life Beyond Earth, and What Happens If We Do,” Shostak proposed three ways — or three “horse races” — for discovering life in space. First, we could discover it close, in our Solar System. NASA’s Curiosity Rover is at present studying the Martian surface for clues of past or present life. And “Europa Clipper”, a mission to Jupiter’s icy moon, is now under attention. Second, we could “discover it out” of the atmosphere of an exo-planet, using telescopes to look for gases such as methane and oxygen that might clue at a biosphere. The James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in 2018, will be able to carry out that kind of work.
Discovering life in our Solar System, which possibly would be microbial, might not have as great an impression as hearing from an intellectual civilization far away. We’d have to worry about matters like contamination. We might also find some different biochemistry, maybe exposing new visions about the nature of life. But that type of finding wouldn’t affect us as much as the view of communicating with intellectual life.
Then again it would take hundreds, if not thousands of years for a signal to mobile from side to side, Shostak mentioned. So that third situation would only show us a very few things immediately, such as their locality or what type of star they orbit. However, picking a signal might have other tempting implications about the nature of alien intellect.
Several scientists, including Shostak, put forward the following proposition: “That once a society creates the technology that could put them in touch with the cosmos, they are only a few hundred years away from changing their paradigm from biology to artificial intelligence.” The knowledge is based on the so-called “time scale argument” or “short window observation.” Many scientists forecast we’ll have industrialized a strong A.I by 2050 here on Earth — about a hundred years after the creation of computers, or a hundred and fifty years after the creation of radio connectio. “The point is that, going from creating radios to devising thinking machines is very short — a few centuries at most,” Shostak said. “The leading intelligence in the cosmos may well be non-biological.”
In a talk titled “Alien Minds,” Susan Schneider, a philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut, explained that idea further. The idea of “whole brain emulation” is becoming gradually general among certain scientists, she explained. So are other unbelievable sounding ideas like “mind uploading” and “immortally.” So, to her, a civilization able to radio communicate would probably be “super-intelligent” by the time we hear from them.
According to the "short window observation" concept, a civilization talented of radio communication would possibly have established artificial intelligence by the time we hear from them. She also claimed that alien super-intelligence would be sensible in principle, since the neural code is similar to a computational code, and thoughts could well be inserted in a silicon-based substrate. A silicon-based intelligence would also have wonderful effects for long distance space travel. But again, a repeated theme throughout the conference was to be alert of our anthropocentric tendencies. There’s been a vast gap between microbial life and intelligent life on Earth, and even intelligent life has even progressed on a spectrum.
Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and current director of the Kimela Center for Animal Advocacy, debated as such in a talked titled “The Landscape of Intelligence.” We have a lot to study from other intelligent beings here on Earth (such as dolphins) before even thinking about contacting aliens.
Eventually, the utmost implications might be philosophical. Whether it turns out to be microbial, compound or intelligent, finding life somewhere else will increase fascinating questions about our place in the cosmos. A couple of presentations, by theologian Robin Lovin and Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, even spoke the potential influence on the world’s religions. But what if we don’t find anything soon, or even at all?
The hunt itself can give us a sense of direction, and help us furnace a planetary characteristics, argued the philosopher Clement Vidal in a talk titled “Silent Impact.” And if we’re really alone, then we should start taking good care of life here on Earth, and consider our duty of colonization, he added. The hunt itself can help us forge a planetary identity, said philosopher Clement Vidal. In the interim, astrobiology can help thin the gap among the sciences and humanities, as many presenters highlighted. And it can be a step to incorporating our knowledge across a wide range of disciplines.
So, how do we get ready for something we know so little about? We do so “by on-going to do good science, but also by understanding that science is not metaphysically n }eutral,” finished the conference host Steven Dick. “We get ready by continuing to question our suppositions about the nature of life and intelligence.”
Honshu wolves were abundant in Japan until 1732, when rabies reached the island’s shores. Alongside widescale deforestation and a state-funded culling, the disease ultimately led to wolve’s complete extinction. The last specimen was officially killed in 1905 in Nara prefecture.
Now, in the farmlands near Kisarazu City, they are making a comeback. However, these aren’t the living, breathing wolves we all know (and fear). Rather, it’s a solar-powered robot that’s meant to look like a wolf. And instead of terrorizing Japanese rice farmers, this big, bad wolf is designed to scare off deer, wild boars and other ‘pests’ that have bred uncontrollably ever since wolves disappeared.
The mechanized wolf, officially called “Super Monster Wolf” (SMW), was loaned to the cooperative association JA Kisarazu-shi for the last eight months. Reportedly, the trial has been a resounding success with local farmers happy with the results.
SMW measures 65 centimeters (2.2 feet) in length, which makes it about the size of a real wolf. It’s been adorned with fur, but also with a really weird and menacing-looking face, with angry blood-shot eyes. And I’m sorry to break it to you, but this version doesn’t prance around farms, shrieking and howling. Instead, it’s immobile, much like a scarecrow.
However, it’s infrared sensors alert the bot of any wildlife that comes within a one kilometer (0.6 miles) radius. When it does, it goes full nuclear, emitting a wide range of sounds from classic wolf howls to gunshots — anything to ward off wild boars. Any humans scared to death by SMW can be classed as collateral damage.
Since SMW was installed on July 11, Japanese news outlet The Asahi Shimbunreports that there have been no more signs of wild animals or birds nearby. So, it seems to be working quite nicely. If you’re interested in one for your farm (or evil lair), the Super Monster Wolf will become commercially available in late September for ¥200,000, or $1,810 USD. Quite the price to pay for a high-tech scarecrow, but imagine what an icebreaker this will make at parties.
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'HAMMER' Time? Spacecraft Could Nuke Dangerous Asteroid to Defend Earth
'HAMMER' Time? Spacecraft Could Nuke Dangerous Asteroid to Defend Earth
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
Artist's illustration of an asteroid headed for Earth.
Credit: European Space Agency
The next time a hazardous asteroid lines Earth up in its crosshairs, we may be ready for the threat.
Scientists and engineers with the U.S. government have drawn up plans for a spacecraft that could knock big, incoming space rocks off course via blunt-force impact or blow them to bits with a nuclear warhead, BuzzFeed News reported.
The researchers announced the concept vehicle, known as the Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response (HAMMER), in a study in the February issue of the journal Acta Astronautica. And the team will discuss HAMMER at an asteroid-research conference in May, according to BuzzFeed News. [Potentially Dangerous Asteroids (Images)]
Each HAMMER spacecraft would weigh about 8.8 tons (8 metric tons). If an asteroid threat is detected early enough, a fleet of the vehicles could be dispatched to collide, nuke-free, with the space rock, changing its trajectory enough to spare Earth from an impact.
But this strategy wouldn't work for big asteroids that appear out of the cosmic gloom with little warning; there wouldn't be enough time for the nudge to take effect. To neutralize, or at least mitigate, such threats, a HAMMER would have to be outfitted with a nuke, the study team stressed.
"Whenever practical, the kinetic impactor is the preferred approach, but various factors, such as large uncertainties or short available response time, reduce the kinetic impactor's suitability and, ultimately, eliminate its sufficiency," the researchers wrote in the Acta Astronautica paper. The research is part of a broader study by NASA and the National Nuclear Security Agency to better understand humanity's options when presented with a potentially threatening near-Earth object (NEO).
To arrive at these results, and refine HAMMER's design, the team modeled how to deal with a potential real-life scenario: What if the 1,640-foot-wide (500 meters) near-Earth asteroid Bennu was headed right for our planet? There's a 1-in-2,700 chance that this will indeed happen, on Sept. 21, 2135, BuzzFeed News reported.
"Bennu was selected for our case study in part because it is the best-studied of the known NEOs," the researchers wrote. "It is also the destination of NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample-return mission, which is, at the time of this writing, en route to Bennu following a September 2016 launch."
OSIRIS-REx — whose name is short for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer — is scheduled to arrive at Bennu this summer. The spacecraft will study the asteroid from orbit for two years, then swoop in to grab a sample, which will return to Earth in a special container in September 2023, if all goes according to plan.
OSIRIS-REx is an $800 million mission. It's unclear how much a HAMMER spacecraft would cost, if one ever gets built (which is certainly no guarantee, given that it's a concept vehicle at this stage). The study team declined to estimate a price, BuzzFeed News reported.
Giant Alien Planet May Lurk Inside Star's Lopsided Dust Structure
Giant Alien Planet May Lurk Inside Star's Lopsided Dust Structure
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
A huge, complicated dust structure 150 billion miles across surrounds the young star HR 4796A, as seen in this view from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Credit: G. Schneider (Univ. of Arizona)/NASA/ESA
The Hubble Space Telescope recently discovered a star surrounded by a huge dust structure that stretches about 150 billion miles across.
Scientists suspect that a giant planet is also embedded inside of the debris, and so the structure could shed insights into how planets are formed, NASA officials said in a statement.
"The debris field of very fine dust was likely created from collisions among developing infant planets near the star, evidenced by a bright ring of dusty debris seen seven billion miles [11 billion kilometers] from the star. The pressure of starlight from the star, which is 23 times more luminous than the sun, then expelled the dust far into space," NASA officials said in the statement. [In Pictures: The Strangest Alien Planets We've Found So Far]
But there are strange subtleties to the dust ring's structure. NASA describes it as looking like an inner tube that got hit by a truck. That's because the dust is much more extended on one side of the star than it is on the other side. Perhaps, scientists suggest, the host star is plowing through the gas that makes up the interstellar medium, creating a shock wave that is affecting the dust. Or, the star's red dwarf binary companion, HR 4796B — which is roughly 54 billion miles (87 billion km) away — is exerting a tidal influence.
"The dust distribution is a telltale sign of how dynamically interactive the inner system containing the ring is," stated lead researcher and astronomer Glenn Schneider of the University of Arizona, Tucson. He used Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to examine the dust in more detail.
"We cannot treat exoplanetary debris systems as simply being in isolation," he added. "Environmental effects, such as interactions with the interstellar medium and forces due to stellar companions, may have long-term implications for the evolution of such systems. The gross asymmetries of the outer dust field are telling us there are a lot of forces in play — beyond just host-star radiation pressure — that are moving the material around. We've seen effects like this in a few other systems, but here's a case where we see a bunch of things going on at once."
About 40 debris disks have been photographed around stars to date, mostly through Hubble observations. Evidence of the first debris disk around a star (Beta Pictoris) was discovered in 1983, using NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite. In 2015, NASA officials said Beta Pictoris was the only known system that has a gas giant planet embedded in the dust.
Brilliant Fireball Lights Up the Sky Over Washington
Brilliant Fireball Lights Up the Sky Over Washington
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
A space rock slammed into Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday night (March 7), putting on a brief but brilliant sky show, according to media reports.
The fireball and associated boom were caused by an object about the size of a minivan. It streaked over Washington and eventually fell, in smoldering bits and broken-up pieces, into the Pacific Ocean about 14 miles (22 kilometers) off the state's coast, NASA meteor expert Marc Fries told Seattle TV station Q13 Fox.
And there were a lot of those pieces raining down.
"It's really dramatic in the radar imagery, to the point that this is probably the biggest meteorite fall I've seen in the continental U.S. in the past 20 years," Fries, who's based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, told Q13 Fox.
Hundreds of people reported seeing the fireball Wednesday night, Q13 Fox said. And scientists picked up readings of the event, using seismographs and satellites, from as far away as the Canadian province of Manitoba.
Watch: Brilliant fireball darts across sky over Washington Tuesday night - The Washington Post
Technically, any meteor that blazes more brightly than Venus in the sky is a fireball. Wednesday's meteor was an uber-fireball, a superluminous type known as a bolide, Fries said.
About 100 tons of space material falls into Earth's atmosphere every day, most of it as small dust particles. But big pieces do sneak into the mix on a fairly regular basis, meaning fireballs, while dramatic and spectacular, aren't particularly rare. For example, brilliant fireballs lit up skies over Michigan and New Jersey this past January and December, respectively.
Space rocks are responsible for most of the fireballs we see, but not all of them; sometimes the burning-up object was made by human hands. The dazzling meteor that lit up skies over the Western U.S. in July 2016, for instance, was caused by a 6-ton piece of a Chinese rocket that fell back to Earth.
And another big piece of Chinese hardware could put on a sky show soon. The 8.5-ton Tiangong-1 space lab — which China used to help practice the docking and rendezvous maneuvers needed to build an orbiting space station — is scheduled to make an uncontrolled re-entry between March 24 and April 19, according to the latest estimates.
Meteor lights up sky in Washington State, USA
Editor's note: If you capture an amazing photo or video of a meteor or any other celestial sight and would like to share it with Space.com for a story or gallery, send images and comments to: spacephotos@space.com.
10 Of The Most Mysterious Discoveries Made On Earth
10 Of The Most Mysterious Discoveries Made On Earth
The history of our planet is full of incredible mysteries. The more we search and research, the more mysteries we uncover. And despite the fact that archaeologists and scientists work hard to figure everything out, we know very little about our past.
As Best Selling author Graham Hancock has said, we are a species with amnesia.
Proof of this are the countless discoveries that have been made throughout the years, which question our beliefs, the4 fundaments of society, and capabilities of ancient civilizations.
Here, in this article, we bring you some of the most inexplicable, and history-challenging discoveries that have been made on Earth.
Aerial view of Sacsayhuaman.
1. Sacsayhuamán
Sacsayhuamán is without a doubt one of the most incredible ancient sites ever discovered on the planet. Why? Not only because of the history of this ancient city but because of the supermassive stones used in its construction.
The ceremonial complex is well-known for its impeccable masonry that is so precise that engineers today have no clue how it was made.
Some of the stones at Sacsayhuamán are so perfectly fitted that not a single sheet of paper can fit in between.
The Gate of the Sun.
Image credit: Shutterstock.
2. The Gate of The Sun ( Puerta del Sol)
The Gate of the Sun is a megalithic solid stone arch or gateway located in Tiwanaku, an ancient mysterious city located in Bolivia.
Archaeologists believe this ancient city was the center of a vast empire during the first millennium AD.
And despite the fact that we know a lot about South American ancient civilizations, researchers are still not able to figure out the meaning of some of the drawings that are enshrined in the monuments of the ancient city.
Some experts believe these depictions have a great astrological and astronomical value, while other authors believe it is a gateway to another world.
The interior of the Longyou caves.
3. The Longyou Caves
The Longyou Caves are out of this world. This incredible set of caves is little talked about.
The Longyou Caves are a set of artificial caves that are believed to be at least 2000 years old and happen to be one of the largest structures ever excavated by man.
Researchers have been baffled by the size and precision of the caves.
Archaeologists, engineers, architects, and geologists from around the world have tried to figure out how, why and when were these artificial caves were built, but no one has offered a single solution to the many mysteries surrounding the caves.
Some argue that this ancient complex is a natural wonder.
4. The underwater city of Yonaguni – Japan
Referred to as Japans Atlantis, some authors argue the Yonaguni complex is an ancient monument left behind by an ancient civilization that existed on Earth before the last Ice Age.
These alleged ancient remains were discovered accidentally by scuba instructor Khachiro Arataki.
Some underwater archaeologists, as well as many authors, refer to this ancient complex as one of the most important underwater discoveries in recent years.
The discovery of the Yonaguni complex has questioned several scientific theories.
The incredibly carved rock sank is believed to have sunken more than 12,000 years ago, much before the Ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids.
Mainstream archaeology and science argue that no advanced civilizations existed on Earth before the last Ice Age and that ancient mankind was not able to carve such a complex structure.
Mohenjo-Daro archaeological site.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
5. Mohenjo-Daro
The archaeological site of Mohenjo Daro is considered by many ancient astronaut theorists as one of the best examples of ancient alien contact.
The destruction of this once great city has been a mystery for archaeologists and experts for decades.
Ancient Astronaut theorists claim that thousands of years ago, advanced alien civilizations visited Earth, and nuclear bombs were used to destroy this city.
The city was discovered in 1992 when Indian archaeologist R. Banardzhi found the ancient ruins on the banks of the Indus River.
Questions such as the cause of the destruction and the fate of its inhabitants remain a mystery to scholars.
Some researchers have postulated theories that this city was destroyed by the gods, with “advanced nuclear weapons.”
The underground city of Derinkuyu.
Image Credit: Shutterstock.
6. The underground city of Derinkuyu
Another incredible feat of ancient engineering. Thousands of years ago, ancient people excavated hundreds of meters into the Earth, building one of the greatest ancient underground cities on Earth.
This incredible underground city has challenged the views and theories of archaeologists and engineers ever since its discovery.
Many mysteries engulf this underground city. No one has been able to understand why and how it was built.
While some authors indicate it was created to protect its inhabitants from climate change, extreme temperatures or even war, there are others who believe that its purpose is far more mysterious.
The elaboration of the spheres began around 300 AD.
7. Giant Stone Spheres
These giant stone spheres have been present from Costa Rica to Bosnia & Herzegovina, they come in all sorts of sizes. They were first found in South America in the 1930’s by workers who were clearing jungle to make way for a plantation of bananas.
South American legends say that hidden within the rocks are unimaginable treasures. This has led to the destruction of many of these spheres by people who did not recognize their historical value. Despite the fact that many of these spheres were destroyed, no one has ever found anything inside them. Similar spheres can be found in Europe in Bosnia & Herzegovina near Visoko.
No one can explain what these giant stone spheres are made for.
Many researchers believe that there are several pieces of evidence pointing towards the existence of highly advanced ancient civilizations that existed on Earth millions of years ago.
8. 14 million-year-old vehicle tracks
According to a researcher called Dr. Koltypin, millions of years ago advanced technologies existed on Earth, and the traces we see in the above image were left behind by vehicles 14 million years ago
As noted by Russian Geologists, these mysterious traces are at least 14 million old and were left behind by “vehicles” that belonged to a currently “unknown ancient civilization” that inhabited our planet in the past.
Many researchers believe that we are not the first society to rule over this planet. In fact, a number of authors have claimed that many other advanced civilizations called this planet home in the past.
According to Dr. Koltypin and many other archaeologists, which have adopted new ways of thinking, these ancient “car tracks” are one of the best-preserved pieces of evidence which undoubtedly prove the existence of highly advanced ancient civilizations that inhabited our planet in the distant past.
The mysterious Natural Nuclear Reactor.
9. 2 billion-year-old Natural Nuclear Reactor
In 1972, researchers confirmed the discovery of a set of Natural Nuclear Reactors in Gabon. Ever since, scientists have scratched their heads trying to understand how it is possible that these nuclear reactors developed in Gabon two billion years ago, and did not come into existence at any other place on the Planet.
As claimed by experts, more than two billion years ago, parts of the African uranium deposit spontaneously underwent nuclear fission. According to scientists, this mysterious “natural” nuclear reactor had the ability to produce modest energy. Scientists estimate the Oklo reactors would have had samples with roughly 3.6% uranium-235 — that’s close to the enrichment threshold of modern nuclear reactors.
10. A Massive knife discovered underwater
Not much can be found about this mysterious image.
We see a massive knife, held by three scuba drivers somewhere on Earth’s ocean.
The image has been widely sharde among people on social networks, and many consider it evidnece that, before written history, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, giants walked on Earth.
It’s potentially one of the most exciting astronomical discoveries of the decade. Astronomers have detected a signal from the 1st stars to form in the universe.
A signal caused by the very first stars to form in the universe has been picked up by a tiny but highly specialised radio telescope in the remote Western Australian desert.
Details of the detection are revealed in a paper published February 28, 2018, in Nature, and tell us these stars formed only 180 million years after the Big Bang.
It’s potentially one of the most exciting astronomical discoveries of the decade. A second Naturepaper, also published February 28, links the finding to possibly the first detected evidence that dark matter, thought to make up much of the universe, might interact with ordinary atoms.
Tuning in to the signal
This discovery was made by a small radio antenna operating in the band of 50-100 Mhz, which overlaps some well known FM radio stations (which is why the telescope is located in the remote WA desert).
What has been detected is the absorption of light by neutral atomic hydrogen gas, which filled the early universe after it cooled down from the hot plasma of the Big Bang.
At this time (180 million years after the Big Bang) the early universe was expanding, but the densest regions of the universe were collapsing under gravity to make the first stars.
A timeline of the universe, updated to show when the first stars emerged emerged by 180 million years after the Big Bang.
Image via N.R. Fuller, National Science Foundation.
The formation of the first stars had a dramatic effect on the rest of the universe. Ultraviolet radiation from them changed the electron spin in the hydrogen atoms, causing it to absorb the background radio emission of the universe at a natural resonant frequency of 1,420 MHz, casting a shadow so to speak.
Now, 13 billion years later, that shadow would be expected at a much lower frequency because the universe has expanded nearly 18-fold in that time.
An early result
Astronomers had been predicting this phenomenon for nearly 20 years and searching for it for 10 years. No one quite knew how strong the signal would be or at what frequency to search.
Most expected it would take quite a few more years post 2018.
But the shadow was detected at 78 MHz by a team led by astronomer Judd Bowman from Arizona State University.
Amazingly this radio signal detection in 2015-2016 was done by a small aerial (the EDGES experiment), only a few meters in size, coupled to a very clever radio receiver and signal processing system. It’s only been published now after rigorous checking.
The EDGES ground-based radio spectrometer, CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in Western Australia.
Image via CSIRO.
This is the most important astronomical discovery since the detection of gravitational waves in 2015. The first stars represent the start of everything complex in the universe, the beginning of the long journey to galaxies, solar systems, planets, life and brains.
Detecting their signature is a milestone and pinning down the exact time of their formation is an important measurement for cosmology.
This is an amazing result. But it gets better and even more mysterious and exciting.
An artist’s rendering of how the first stars in the universe may have looked.
Image via N.R. Fuller, National Science Foundation.
Evidence of dark matter?
The signal is twice as strong as expected, which is why it has been detected so early. In the second Nature paper, astronomer Rennan Barkana, from Tel Aviv University, said it is quite hard to explain why the signal is so strong, as it tells us the hydrogen gas at this time is significantly colder than expected in the standard model of cosmic evolution.
Astronomers like to introduce new kinds of exotic objects to explain things (e.g. super massive stars, black holes) but these generally produce radiation that makes things hotter instead.
How do you make the atoms colder? You have to put them in thermal contact with something even colder, and the most viable suspect is what is known as cold dark matter.
Cold dark matter is the bedrock of modern cosmology. It was introduced in the 1980s to explain how galaxies rotate – they seemed to spin much faster than could be explained by the visible stars and an extra gravitational force was needed.
We now think that dark matter has to be made of a new kind of fundamental particle. There is about six times more dark matter than ordinary matter and if it was made of normal atoms the Big Bang would have looked quite different to what is observed.
As for the nature of this particle, and its mass, we can only guess.
So if cold dark matter is indeed colliding with hydrogen atoms in the early universe and cooling them, this is a major advance and could lead us to pin down its true nature. This would be the first time dark matter has demonstrated any interaction other than gravity.
Here comes the ‘but’
A note of caution is warranted. This hydrogen signal is very difficult to detect: it is thousands of times fainter than the background radio noise even for the remote location in Western Australia.
The authors of the first Nature paper have spent more than a year doing a multitude of tests and checks to make sure they have not made a mistake. The sensitivity of their aerial needs to be exquisitely calibrated all across the bandpass. The detection is an impressive technical achievement but astronomers worldwide will be holding their breath until the result is confirmed by an independent experiment.
If it is confirmed then this will open the door to a new window on the early universe and potentially a new understanding of the nature of dark matter by providing a new observational window in to it.
This signal has been detected coming from the whole sky, but in the future it can be mapped on the sky, and the details of the structures in the maps would then give us even more information on the physical properties of the dark matter.
More desert observations
Today’s publications are exciting news for Australia in particular. Western Australia is the most radio quiet zone in the world, and will be the prime location for future mapping observations. The Murchison Widefield Array is in operation right now, and future upgrades could provide exactly such a map.
One of 128 tiles of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope.
This is also a major science goal of the multi-billion dollar Square Kilometre Array, located in Western Australia, that should be able to provide much greater fidelity pictures of this epoch.
It is extremely exciting to look forward to a time when we will be able to reveal the nature of the first stars and to have a new approach via radio astronomy to tackle dark matter, which has so far proved intractable.
Let’s hope the governments of the world, or at least Australia, can keep the frequency of 78 MHz clean of pop music and talk shows so we can continue to observe the birth of the universe.
Scientists watched Neptune's largest moon pass in front of a star to learn about this distant solar system atmosphere, the SpaceX Tesla Roadster may be carrying microbes and Jupiter is home to cyclones arranged in mysterious geometric formations. These are some of the top stories this week from Space.com.
Photo Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn. State/G. Yang et al & NASA/CXC/ICE/M. Mezcua et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI; Illustration: NASA/CXC/A. Jubett
1. Black Holes are 'ultramassive' in large galaxies
On Capitol Hill this past Wednesday (Mar. 7), members of the House Space Subcommittee voiced concerns about the future of NASA's science missions. The Trump administration's budget proposal for 2019 requests to cancel six upcoming missions from NASA's Astrophysics and Earth Science programs. The administration supports the long-term goal of sending humans to the moon and Mars, but the budget would force NASA to cancel several projects like its next big astrophysics mission, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).
2. Cuts to NASA's science missions raises concerns
Two U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned safely to Earth on Tuesday (Feb. 27). The Expedition 54 crew completed a total of 168 days aboard the International Space Station. Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA, alongside Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos, re-entered the atmosphere inside a Soyuz MS-06 capsule and landed in Kazakhstan at 9:31 p.m. EST (0231 GMT).
The largest geostationary satellite to have ever travelled aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully entered into orbit on Tuesday (Mar. 6) upon the spaceflight company's 50th Falcon 9 launch. The communications satellite, run by Madrid-based company Hispasat, weighed 6 metric tons (2,205 lbs), and according to SpaceX, the fuel demands of taking it into orbit prompted the decision to not attempt landing the rocket's first stage this time around.
Planetary science and astronautic experts released a statement suggesting that the cherry-red Tesla Roadster vehicle set into orbit by the spectacular SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch last month could be a source of contamination if the car ever accidentally lands on Mars. Lab experiments have shown that certain microbes can withstand the harsh conditions of deep space, especially inside compartments like engines. SpaceX launched the car with no stated intention of landing it on Mars, but the possibility of a crash is not entirely ruled out: Shortly after launch, the payload veered off its intended heliocentric orbit.
5. Encircling storms on Jupiter form mysterious patterns
Giant cyclones swirling at Jupiter's poles are arranged in geometric patterns, and scientists are being careful about comparing them with storms previously seen on other planets. Recent infrared imagery taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft, the first probe to fly over Jupiter's poles, made these features visible to study. Although geometric cloud formations were once seen at the north pole of Saturn in 1988, Jupiter's formations are quite different: This is the first time a group of cyclones are seen together in a polygonal shape.
The dense remnant of a formerly massive star exhibited zombie-like behavior when it produced a high-energy emission after feeding off a still-living star. The neutron star is what remains of a heavy star after it runs out of fuel, and although it is a dead stellar core, its gravitational pull allowed it to lure matter from its companion red giant star. Both make up a rare binary star system, less than 10 of which have ever been spotted in the universe.
7. Scientists consider opening Apollo moon sample bags
Three sealed bags of lunar material collected by the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 moonwalking astronauts have never been opened, and to this day, they remain protected at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Some scientists believe that now is a good time to finally analyze the material, citing the growing interest in sending future crewed missions to the moon and the development of technology capable of carefully testing it. But they also added that careful planning would be necessary before attempting a study.
Barbie's "Inspiring Women" doll series will depict NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, whose contributions to spaceflight were highlighted in the 2016 film "Hidden Figures." According to Barbie manufacturer Mattel, the new doll will showcase "the achievements of a pioneer who broke through barriers of race and gender." Johnson's computer skills and trajectory calculations proved critical for the successful Apollo moon launches.
9. Scientists watched Triton's clouds get backlit by a distant star
Neptune's largest moon Triton is interesting to astronomers, particularly its atmosphere. Researchers used the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft to determine when and from where on Earth Triton would appear to pass in front of a distant star. Similar to a solar eclipse, this effect is called an occultation, and as the star backlit Triton's atmosphere in October of last year, scientists were able to collect data which could reveal information about Triton's winds.
10. Saturn-sized exoplanet has surprising water content
Researchers found that Saturn-sized exoplanet WASP-39b has surprising levels of water in its atmosphere. This planet orbits its star about eight times closer than Mercury's distance to the sun, and doesn't turn on its axis, and both facts make the findings of high water content unexpected. Spotted by the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, this gas giant is thought to have been born farther away from the parent star than it is now, where ices could collect.
While rare to human eyes, calcium silicate perovskite may be shockingly ordinary deep inside the Earth — in fact, it's thought to be the fourth most abundant mineral inside the planet, especially prevalent in slabs of oceanic crust that have plunged into the planet's mantle at tectonic boundaries.
Despite the mineral's theorized prevalence, however, previous studies have never yielded observable evidence of its existence. It's thought to occur deep inside Earth's mantle, however — some 700 kilometers (435 miles) below the planet's surface, the researchers said.
"Nobody has ever managed to keep this mineral stable at the Earth's surface," study co-author Graham Pearson, a professor in the University of Alberta's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said in a statement. "The only possible way of preserving this mineral at the Earth's surface is when it's trapped in an unyielding container like a diamond."
In the new study, Pearson and his colleagues analyzed a tiny diamond (roughly 3 millimeters across) excavated from Cullinan less than 1 km (0.6 miles) below the Earth's surface. Despite this relatively shallow depth, the researchers determined that the crystal was an example of a "deep diamond" that most likely had been formed about 700 km below the Earth's surface, derived from a subducted slab of ocean crust and exposed to some 240,000 atmospheres of pressure.
The chunk of calcium silicate perovskite within the gemstone was visible with the naked eye after the diamond was polished, the researchers wrote, but proper analysis and imaging required an international effort. X-ray and spectroscopy tests confirmed that the diamond did contain calcium silicate perovskite — quite possibly the first intact sample ever seen.
"Diamonds are really unique ways of seeing what's in the Earth," Pearson said. "And the specific composition of the perovskite inclusion in this particular diamond very clearly indicates the recycling of oceanic crust into Earth's lower mantle. It provides fundamental proof of what happens to the fate of oceanic plates as they descend into the depths of the Earth."
This Weird Google Earth Picture Does Not Show a Crashed UFO
This Weird Google Earth Picture Does Not Show a Crashed UFO
By Rafi Letzter, Staff Writer
This block of ice in Antarctica, which is visible on Google Earth, is claimed by some as evidence of alien life.
Credit: DigitalGlobe/Google
A popular YouTube channel that peddles conspiracy theories is trying to convince viewers that photos of an avalanche on an island near Antarctica depict an alien spaceship crash site.
In a video posted to the channel SecureTeam10, a narrator claims that an image of South Georgia Island taken from Google Earth shows the remains of an extraterrestrial craft that slammed into the side of a mountain and skidded a long distance across the ice.
The photo does show a lot of disturbed ice on the side of a glacier near Mount Paget, a 9,629-foot-tall (2,935 meters) prominence on the British-controlled island far to the south of Argentina. A long trail extends away from the main disturbed area, leading to a white object that appears embedded in the snow on top of the glacier. [25 Strangest Sights on Google Earth]
Richard Waller, a senior lecturer in physical geography at Keele University in the United Kingdom,told The Daily Mailthat the photo actually depicts an avalanche that cast one large block of ice skidding and rolling much farther than the rest of the collapsed snow, and that the white object is that block of ice. This scenario is also, frankly, pretty obvious to even a casual observer.
In a zoomed-out image, it's pretty obvious what's going on here.
Credit: DigitalGlobe/Google
SecureTeam10's video on the subject has nonetheless been viewed nearly half a million times as of this writing. The channel's conspiratorial videos routinely garner hundreds of thousands of views.
In addition, the channel bears a "verification" check mark from YouTube. Google, on an oblique web page explaining the YouTube verification process (Google owns and operates YouTube), writes that a check mark indicates "that the channel belongs to an established creator or is the official channel of a brand, business or organization."
It's not clear precisely what criteria earned SecureTeam10 its YouTube verification. Live Science wrote to Google, requesting clarification on why SecureTeam10 was given such a check mark, but we did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
Christopher Mellon, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has blamed the US defense agency Pentagon for not investigating UFO encounters.
Mellon, who is now an adviser 'To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science' wrote a detailed report about UFOs in the Washington Post recently, and he stated that authorities have no idea over the bizarre sightings as no proper investigations were carried out to unravel these mysteries.
The two unexplained sightings which still remain mystery
It was in December 2017 that the Defense Department declassified two stunning videos which feature encounters between US F-18 jets and an unidentified aircraft. In the video, one can see an object flying at a stellar speed, and experts argue that the aircraft flew in such a way that it defied all laws of physics.
To unravel this mystery, the Pentagon had launched an investigation program named ' Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP)' in 2007 but was scrapped in 2011 after the team failed to provide scientific explanation for the sighting. Finally, the report, published in the New York Times compelled Pentagon to release these videos.
Later, To the Stars Academy released a video which features another flying object encountered by the US Navy off the East Coast in 2015.
"Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization? Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren't even seeking answers," wrote Christopher Mellon.
Mellon blamed the Pentagon for the resignation of Louis Elizondo who headed the authority's UFO search program. "A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of "anomalous" aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data," wrote Mellon.
Are authorities intentionally turning their blind eye?
Mellon believes that the sightings should be investigated with priority, as it is a matter of national security. Other critics claim that the authority is not interested to learn more about these mysterious sightings or they might be intentionally covering up the details of these incidents.
"The current approach by Pentagon is equivalent to having the Army conduct a submarine search without the Navy. It is also reminiscent of the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI before Sept. 11, 2001, when each had information on the hijackers that they kept to themselves. In this instance, the truth may ultimately prove benign, but why leave it to chance?," said Mellon.
Mellon believes that some of the aircraft might be of Russian origin, and in the wild possibility, it might have come from outer space. The ex-deputy assistant defense secretary urged authorities to look deep into the issue, as it is an urgent req
Artist's illustration of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will hunt for exoplanets orbiting the brightest stars just outside our solar system.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is an upcoming NASA mission that will look for planets orbiting the brightest stars in Earth's sky. The mission will monitor at least 200,000 stars for signs of exoplanets, ranging from Earth-sized rocky worlds to huge gas giant planets. (TESS is slated to last two years, but if the mission is extended, it may look at more stars.)
The mission will launch no earlier than April 16 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Its launch vehicle will be a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX. From Earth, TESS will eventually make its way to a special orbit high above the planet, where it can perform observations with minimal interference from Earth's atmosphere.
"TESS anticipates the discovery of thousands of exoplanets of all sizes around a variety of star types," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which is leading the mission, said in a statement. Along with a network of ground telescopes that will verify TESS observations, the mission will find at least 50 planets that are close to Earth's size (no more than four times Earth's diameter).
"TESS is expected to find more than a thousand planets smaller than Neptune, including dozens that are comparable in size to the Earth," added a team led by TESS principal investigator George Ricker, who is an MIT astrophysicist, in a 2015 journal article about the mission.
"Public data releases will occur every four months, inviting immediate community-wide efforts to study the new planets," he added. "The TESS legacy will be a catalog of the nearest and brightest stars hosting transiting planets, which will endure as highly favorable targets for detailed investigations."
In a photo posted to Twitter July 25, technicians pose with the four cameras that will be installed on the TESS spacecraft.
Credit: NASA
Mission history and profile
TESS was first proposed in 2006 as a privately funded mission with financial backing from several institutions, including the Kavli Foundation, Google and donors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to NASA. It was eventually selected in 2013 as a mission in the Explorer program, which features large craft but do not exceed $200 million.
TESS will occupy a never-before-used orbit high above Earth, according to NASA. The elliptical orbit, called P/2, is exactly half of the moon's orbital period; this means that TESS will orbit Earth every 13.7 days. Its closest point to Earth (67,000 miles or 108,000 kilometers) is about triple the distance of geosynchronous orbit, where most communications satellites operate. When TESS reaches this point in its orbit, it will transmit data to ground stations; the process will take about three hours. Then TESS will pass through the Van Allen radiation belts to the highest point of its orbit, at 232,000 miles (373,000 km).
The solar-powered spacecraft carries four 100-millimeter-wide cameras that provide wide fields of view, according to NASA. They will stare at a particular region of the sky for between 27 and 351 days each, before moving on to another area. (The length of time will be decided according to where the region is in the sky, MIT stated.) The spacecraft is expected to map the Southern Hemisphere in its first year, and the Northern Hemisphere in its second year.
On Feb. 12, 2018, TESS arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, where the satellite will undergo final preparations for launch, which is scheduled for no earlier than April 16.
Credit: NASA's Kennedy Space Center
Planet-hunting
The satellite is a follow-up of NASA's highly successful Kepler space telescope, which has found thousands of exoplanets since its launch in 2009. TESS, however, will focus on stars that are 30 to 100 times brighter than those Kepler examined, NASA said. It's much easier for ground telescopes to follow up on observations if the stars are bright, and easy to spot. The discovered exoplanets will also be useful for the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, which can examine them for more information for their atmosphere and composition after it launches in 2019.
Like Kepler, TESS will look at variations in the brightness of stars. If an exoplanet passes in front of a star (called a planetary transit), it blocks a portion of the light and causes the brightness to dip. The mission is expected to collect thousands of candidate exoplanets, including Earth-sized and "super-Earth sized" planets. This will help astronomers better understand the structure of solar systems outside of our Earth, and provide insights into how our own solar system formed.
A newly released declassified video, shared by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science , a privately-owned media and scientific research company, documents a previously undisclosed Navy fighter encounter with a UFO that happened in an undisclosed location off the East Coast of the United States in 2015.
If you watch this video that the Pentagon amazingly released it records an encounter between a Navy fighter pilot, who finally is able to target an incredibly fast UFO after several unsuccessful attempts. When pilot finally succeeds, he is clearly excited and asks the other pilots with him what in world the object is?
No one knows.
Unanswered Questions
That is the rub. Some principals of the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, such as Christoper Mellon are troubled that the Pentagon doesn’t seem to care, according to an op-ed he wrote in the Washington Post. He and others worry that if these unknown aircraft are really technological breakthroughs by the Russians or Chinese Communists then we should know about it. And if they are not, but instead vehicles from another world, we should know that too.
I unlike, Mellon, do not believe the Pentagon is as complacent as he suggests. On the contrary, the mere fact he was given this video leads me to believe there are those in high government places that are preparing all of us for a reveal of a lifetime, coming very soon!
Wauw, wat is dat in vredesnaam?! Nieuwe video openbaar gemaakt waarin straaljagerpiloten oog in oog komen met UFO
Wauw, wat is dat in vredesnaam?! Nieuwe video openbaar gemaakt waarin straaljagerpiloten oog in oog komen met UFO
Er is een derde video naar buiten gebracht waarin te zien is hoe marinepiloten in 2015 voor de Amerikaanse oostkust een UFO volgen. Dat laat Christopher Mellon, plaatsvervangend onderminister van Defensie voor inlichtingen onder Clinton en Bush, weten in de Washington Post.
Is dit bewijs van een buitenaardse beschaving? Dat weten we helaas niet, omdat we niet eens zoeken naar antwoorden, aldus Mellon.
Hoewel er steeds meer gegevens worden verzameld waaruit blijkt dat onbekende objecten vaak ons luchtruim doorkruisen, behandelt de overheid dit soort incidenten nog steeds als geïsoleerde gebeurtenissen.
Te snel af
In sommige gevallen daalden deze vaartuigen met supersonische snelheid van bijna 20 kilometer hoogte naar 15 meter hoogte boven de oceaan, merkt Mellon op.
“De VS beschikt niet over vliegtuigen die tot zoiets in staat zijn,” zegt hij.
In tenminste twee gevallen werden F-18’s op deze vaartuigen afgestuurd om ze te onderscheppen. De mysterieuze witte objecten, die op klaarlichte dag verschenen en op de radar werden gevolgd, waren de straaljagers altijd te snel af.
Taboes
Militairen zien ze dagelijks, maar er wordt vaak weinig met de meldingen gedaan uit angst om belachelijk te worden gemaakt.
“Als deze vaartuigen niet van de aarde afkomstig blijken te zijn, is het heel belangrijk dat we achterhalen wat het zijn,” zegt Mellon.
“Het is hoog tijd om taboes rond UFO’s te doorbreken en te luisteren naar onze piloten en radarbeheerders,” benadrukt hij.
Bekijk de video hieronder:
Foto: YouTube/To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science
500 Million-Year-Old Human Footprint Fossil Baffles Scientists
500 Million-Year-Old Human Footprint Fossil Baffles Scientists
An ancient trilobite was stepped on by a someone wearing shoes hundreds of millions of years ago.
In the summer of 1968, an amateur fossil collector, William J. Meister, made the discovery of a lifetime 43 miles west of Delta, Utah. To his surprise he found a fossilized human footprint about the size of a US 13 shoe (3.5″W x 10.25″L) stepping on a trilobite. Now, trilobites only existed between 260 to 600 million years ago, so this makes it the oldest human fossil footprint ever discovered!
Human footprint stepped on by a dinosaur proving their coexistence. I'm clear that
Trilobites were small marine invertebrates related to crabs and shrimps. Scientists currently think humans emerged 1 or 2 million years ago and only began wearing such shoes a few thousand years ago.
This archaeological discovery could be sufficient to overturn all conventionally accepted ideas of human and geological evolution. According to science’s currently accepted timeline of human existence on this planet, humans advanced enough to wear shoes would not have existed hundreds of millions of years ago. As one might expect, this sent shockwaves throughout the scientific communities with excitement for a new paradigm shift as well as skeptical denial.
Meister took the rock to a professor of metallurgy at the University of Utah, Melvin Cook, who suggested he show it to the university’s geologists. But none of the geologists were willing to examine it, so Meister took it to a local newspaper called The Deseret News and quickly became very well-known around the country.
This amazing find was presented on March 1, 1973 in a creation-evolution debate at California State University in Sacramento. The creationist team included Dr. Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research and Reverend Boswell of a local Sacramento church. The scientific team consisted of Dr. Richard Lemmon of the University of California at Berkeley and Dr. G. Ledyard Stebbins of the University of California at Davis. Reverend Boswell said:
“I have here something that pretty much destroys the entire geological column. It has been studied by three laboratories around the world and it’s been tested and found valid. It represents a footprint that was found at Antelope Springs, Utah, while digging for trilobites.
The man was digging for trilobites, and these are trilobites here and here embedded [pointing to photo]. This is a brick mold of a trilobite footprint [laughter] of a human footprint with a trilobite in it. The man stepped on a living trilobite, [thus burying] him in the mud. This particular strata is dated Cambrian, supposedly 500 million years extinct before man arrived on the face of the earth. The interesting thing about this photograph is that there is also heel marks, which would indicate that they were made by modern man.”
In a news conference, the skeptical curator of the Museum of Earth Science at the University of Utah, James Madsen, dismissively said: “There were no men 600 million years ago. Neither were there monkeys or bears or ground sloths to make pseudo-human tracks. What man-thing could possibly have been walking about on this planet before vertebrates even evolved?”
Another astonishing trilobite fossil discovery was made in Antelope Spring, Arizona on July 20, 1968 by Dr. Clifford Burdick, a consulting geologist from Tucson, Arizona. He found an impression of a child’s foot in a bed of shale.
‘The impression was about six inches in length, with the toes spreading as if the child had never yet worn shoes, which compress the toes. There does not appear to be much of an arch, and the big toe is not prominent.’
This was shown to two geologists and a paleontologist. One geologist agreed it seemed to belong to a human being, but the paleontologist’s opinion was that no biological agent had been involved. Dr.Burdick affirmed:
“The rock chanced to fracture along the front of the toes before the fossil footprint was found. On cross section the fabric of the rock stands out in fine laminations, or bedding planes. Where the toes pressed into the soft material, the laminations were bowed downward from the horizontal, indicating a weight that had been pressed into the mud.”
Mr. Meister claimed that when he had a geologist examine the print, the geologist offered him $250,000 for the print. Meister asked him, “What are you going to do with it if I sell it to you?” The geologist replied, “I’m going to destroy it, it destroys my entire life work as a geologist.”
It’s disappointing to think that some people would be willing to destroy such a monumental artifact that can reveal such a new perspective on our human heritage and origins.
Respected archaeological researcher, Michael Cremo, has written books on the subject of such examples of ancient artifacts and he has learned that certain scientific institutions, like the Smithsonian Institution, make great efforts to maintain the concept of recent human evolution. He has documented several instances where they deny, defame, and even exile archeologists for publishing their findings for peer review.
“In defense of the dates obtained by the geologists, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote in a letter (March 30, 1981) to Estella Leopold, associate editor of Quaternary Research: “The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of ‘Enigmatic Data,’ data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking.”
Can you imagine the implications of mankind around the world learning or realizing we are hundreds of millions of years older than we thought and that we have been far more advanced than even we are today? The questions and answers beyond this metaphoric opened doorway could cause a rippling paradigm shift worldwide.
During one interview, Michael Cremo said:
“The reactions in your question are typical of a group that I call the fundamentalist Darwinists. They support the theory of evolution not for purely scientific reasons, but because it confirms their prior commitments to a strict materialism. They do not want to hear me, and they do not want anyone else to hear me, so they say those kinds of things. Sometimes they try to stop me from lecturing at universities.”
Those really seeking the truth are open to new information to learn from and examine the scientific findings rationally without bias. We may have to dig deep within ourselves to find the answers to the questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here?
500 miljoen jaar oud fossiel van menselijke voetafdruk stelt wetenschappers voor raadsel. Dit is ‘m
500 miljoen jaar oud fossiel van menselijke voetafdruk stelt wetenschappers voor raadsel. Dit is ‘m
Een honderden miljoenen jaren oud fossiel met een voetafdruk stelt wetenschappers al lange tijd voor een raadsel.
Fossielenverzamelaar William J. Meister deed de ontdekking in 1968 in Utah. Hij stuitte op een gefossiliseerde menselijke voetafdruk bovenop een trilobiet.
Trilobieten leefden tussen 260 en 600 miljoen jaar geleden. Dat maakt het de oudste voetafdruk van een mens ooit gevonden, laat Beyond Science TV weten.
Geen
Wetenschappers denken dat moderne mensen één tot twee miljoen jaar geleden zijn verschenen en slechts enkele duizenden jaren geleden pas schoenen zijn gaan dragen.
Meister liet het fossiel zien aan een professor van de Universiteit van Utah, Melvin Cook, die zei dat hij het zou laten zien aan geologen.
Geen van de geologen wilde het onderzoeken en dus stapte Meister ermee naar de lokale krant Deseret News.
Tijdens een debat in 1973 in Californië zei dominee Boswell van een kerk in Sacramento: “Ik heb hier iets dat is bestudeerd door drie laboratoria en authentiek is bevonden.”
Vernietigen
De sceptische curator van het Museum of Earth Science van de Universiteit van Utah, James Madsen, reageerde: “Er waren 600 miljoen jaar geleden nog geen mensen.”
Een soortgelijk fossiel werd in juli 1968 gevonden in Arizona. Geoloog Clifford Burdick vond een voetafdruk van een kind in een schalieveld.
Toen Meister zijn afdruk liet analyseren door een geoloog, bood die hem 250.000 dollar.
Hij vroeg: “Wat ga je ermee doen als ik het verkoop?” Waarop de geoloog antwoordde: “Ik ga het vernietigen, omdat het mijn hele leven als geoloog vernietigt.”
Heel ver
Onderzoeker Michael Cremo heeft meerdere boeken geschreven over de manier waarop bepaalde wetenschappelijke organisaties, zoals het Smithsonian Institution, heel ver gaan om dit soort vondsten onder de pet te houden.
Hij heeft meerdere gevallen gedocumenteerd waarbij ze archeologen die erover publiceren belasteren en zelfs verstoten.
Zo schreef Virginia Steen-McIntyre in 1981 in een brief aan redacteur van Quaternary Research Estella Leopold: “Dit gaat over de manipulatie van de wetenschap door middel van het achterhouden van gegevens die niet stroken met de gangbare opvattingen.”
AFPKrill blijkt in staat om microplastics af te breken in nog kleinere deeltjes.
MILIEUKrill bevindt zich helemaal onderaan de voedselketen, maar de kleine ongewervelde zeediertjes zouden wel eens de oplossing kunnen zijn in de strijd tegen de steeds toenemende vervuiling van onze oceanen. Uit nieuw onderzoek blijkt dat Antarctisch krill in staat is om microplastics te verteren vooraleer ze het weer uitscheiden in nog kleinere vorm. Dat blijkt uit een studie die vandaag gepubliceerd werd in het vakblad Nature Communications.
Krill zijn een soort zoöplankton. De kleine ongewervelde garnaalachtigen leven in grote groepen in oceanen over de hele wereld. Ze zijn amper zo groot als een paperclip en kunnen tot tien jaar oud worden. Ze zijn een van de meest voorkomende diersoorten ter wereld en vormen een belangrijke voedselbron voor uiteenlopende soorten zeedieren. Antarctisch krill leeft in de ijskoude wateren van de Zuidelijke Oceaan.
Het duurde lang vooraleer ik mijn resultaten wilde geloven. Ik ging terug en testte het opnieuw en opnieuw.
Auteur Amanda Dawson deed de ontdekking tijdens een onderzoek naar de vervuiling met microbeads - microplastics van polyethyleen die vaak gebruikt worden in de cosmetica – in het krillaquarium van de Australian Antarctic Division, een afdeling van het Australische overheidsdepartement Milieu. Het onderzochte Antarctisch krill was in staat om microplastics kleiner dan 5 millimeter te verteren.
“We ontdekten dat (Antarctisch) krill plastic eigenlijk afbreekt, het was verbluffend”, vertelde de onderzoekster aan AFP. “Het is moeilijk om precies te weten welke gevolgen dit kan hebben, maar aangezien plastics in de oceaan al gedegradeerd en meer fragiel zijn, is de theorie dat het voor krill nog makkelijker zou zijn om het af te breken.”
“Het duurde lang vooraleer ik mijn resultaten wilde geloven”, aldus Dawson. “Ik ging terug en testte het opnieuw en opnieuw”.
AFPEen onderzoeker bestudeert krill in aquaria van de Australian Antarctic Division.
Nieuwe vs. oude plastics
“Het belangrijkste voor mij is dat we het krill gloednieuwe plastics gaven, maar in werkelijkheid zijn de microplastics in het milieu al deels afgebroken. Dus als krill gloednieuwe plastics kan vermalen, wat kan het dan wel met oude plastics?”
Volgens co-auteur So Kawaguchi is het de eerste keer dat wetenschappers vaststellen dat schaaldieren plastic kunnen verteren. De onderzoekers stelden vast dat de de deeltjes na vertering gemiddeld 78 procent kleiner waren. In sommige gevallen liep dat zelfs op tot 94 procent. “Het is een nieuwe manier voor microplastics om om te gaan met het ecosysteem”, aldus Kawaguchi. Het is mogelijk dat ook andere soorten zooplankton met gelijkaardige spijsverteringssystemen in staat zijn om microplastics af te breken, stelt hij.
Niet té optimistisch
Toch mogen we volgens de onderzoekers nog niet té optimistisch zijn: de kleinere plasticdeeltjes kunnen immers zo belanden bij nog kleinere organismen die het anders niet zouden kunnen eten. Bovendien is er ook nog het gevaar dat de giftige stoffen worden doorgegeven in de voedselketen. “We zijn nog maar net begonnen en er is inderdaad meer werk nodig”, merkt ze op.
Dramatische situatie
Het probleem van de plasticvervuiling is wijdverspreid en wordt snel erger. Elk jaar belandt er meer dan acht miljoen ton plastic in de oceaan met verwoestende effecten op de mariene ecosystemen tot gevolg. Jaarlijks sterven naar schatting één miljoen zeevogels, 100.000 zeezoogdieren en een niet nader bepaald aantal vissen, zo blijkt uit studies.
Vorig jaar citeerde VN secretaris-generaal Antonio Guterres een studie die aantoonde dat er tegen 2050 meer plastic dan vis in de oceanen zal zitten als er niets wordt ondernomen.
anpHet Andromedastelsel. Onderdeel van de Lokale Groep, net als onze eigen Melkweg.
WETENSCHAPCrisis in de kosmologie? Volgens een grote recente studie dijt het heelal te snel uit, dat wil zeggen: sneller dan volgens de berekeningen zou moeten. En als dat zo is, moeten er vraagtekens bij de gangbare ideeën.
Help, het heelal dijt te snel uit. Dat is in zeven woorden de noodkreet van Adam Riess, astronoom aan het Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. Nee, hij ligt er ’s nachts niet wakker van, vertelde hij begin dit jaar op een groot sterrenkundecongres in Washington, maar er is wel sprake van een crisis in de kosmologie, want mogelijk is er iets grondig mis met de gangbare ideeën over het heelal. Alsof een geoloog ontdekt dat de theorie van de continentverschuiving niet klopt. Voldoende reden dus voor een groot artikel in The Astrophysical Journal. Want wie verleden en toekomst van de kosmos wil kennen, moet op z’n minst de uitdijingsgeschiedenis goed begrijpen.
Dat het heelal uitdijt, weten sterrenkundigen al bijna honderd jaar. Al sinds de oerknal, zo’n 13,8 miljard jaar geleden, neemt de lege ruimte steeds meer ruimte in beslag. Sterrenstelsels worden van elkaar weggeduwd als krenten en rozijnen bij het bakken van een paasstol - een mooie vergelijking, waarbij het rijzende deeg de uitdijende ruimte voorstelt. Alle afstanden in het heelal nemen dus toe, en hoe verder twee sterrenstelsels van elkaar af staan, hoe sneller hun onderlinge afstand groeit.
Noodkreet
Twintig jaar geleden, in 1998, slaakte Adam Riess ook al een noodkreet over de uitdijing van het heelal. Toen ontdekte zijn onderzoeksteam dat die uitdijing in de afgelopen paar miljard jaar steeds sneller verliep. Een concurrerend team kwam in datzelfde jaar tot precies diezelfde conclusie. De beide teamleiders ontvingen in 2011 de Nobelprijs Natuurkunde voor hun ontdekking van de versnellende uitdijing van het universum - waarschijnlijk het gevolg van een mysterieuze donkere energie in de lege ruimte. En nu trekt Nobelprijswinnaar Riess dus opnieuw aan de bel: nou gaat het weer té snel allemaal. Niet dat je er in het dagelijks leven iets van merkt. Afstanden in het heelal nemen toe met ongeveer eenhonderdste procent in anderhalf miljoen jaar. Als een ver sterrenstelsel nú op honderd miljoen lichtjaar staat, komt daar elke anderhalve eeuw één lichtjaar bij. Binnen ons eigen Melkwegstelsel speelt de uitdijing van het heelal al helemaal geen rol van betekenis. Het is dan ook niet makkelijk te meten allemaal - vraag maar aan Riess. Maar zijn nieuwste waarnemingen geven wel aan dat het bijna 10 procent sneller gaat dan verwacht. En niemand weet hoe dat komt.
Maar wacht even - wat verwacht je dan? Hoe weet je met welke snelheid het heelal hoort uit te dijen? Simpel: dat blijkt uit metingen aan de kosmische achtergrondstraling, de zwakke nagloed van de oerknal. De Europese ruimtetelescoop Planck heeft de minieme temperatuurvariaties in die achtergrondstraling heel precies in kaart gebracht. Als je weet uit welke ingrediënten het heelal bestaat (atomen en moleculen, donkere materie, donkere energie), kun je daaruit heel exact berekenen wat de huidige uitdijingssnelheid moet zijn. Tot op een procent nauwkeurig.
anpAdam Riess.
Nieuwe ideeën
Dat kun je dus ook omdraaien, dachten Riess en zijn collega’s. Als je de huidige uitdijingssnelheid heel nauwkeurig kunt meten, dan kun je het resultaat vergelijken met de ‘voorspellingen’ van Planck. Als het niet klopt, is er misschien iets mis met die kosmische ingrediëntenlijst waar de voorspellingen op gebaseerd zijn. Dan moeten we vraagtekens gaan zetten bij het favoriete standaardmodel van de kosmologie. Wie weet is het tijd voor compleet nieuwe ideeën over donkere energie en donkere materie - onbekende deeltjes die je niet kunt zien maar die wel zwaartekracht uitoefenen. Meten dus. Zo nauwkeurig mogelijk. Maar hoe doe je dat? Hoe bepaal je de uitdijingssnelheid van het heelal? Voor een bomvolle zaal collega’s legde Riess het in Washington toch nog maar een keer uit. Er is niet echt één kosmische uitdijingssnelheid, in kilometers per seconde of zo. Nee, het gaat om die eerder genoemde procentuele groei. Grote afstanden nemen daardoor sneller toe dan kleine. Dus je moet voor een flink aantal sterrenstelsels twee metingen doen: op welke afstand staan ze, en met hoeveel kilometer per seconde neemt die afstand toe? De verhouding tussen die twee is de enige juiste maat voor de uitdijingssnelheid van het heelal.
Gelukkig is een van die twee metingen heel rechttoe-rechtaan. Door de uitdijing van het heelal lijkt een ver sterrenstelsel van ons weg te vliegen. De snelheid waarmee dat gebeurt, verraadt zich in een subtiele kleurverandering van het licht. Hoe sneller de afstand van het verre stelsel toeneemt, des te roder kleurt het licht dat we van dat stelsel hier op aarde ontvangen. Die roodverschuiving is vergelijkbaar met het bekende dopplereffect bij geluid: de sirene van een ambulance klinkt lager naarmate die zich sneller van ons verwijdert.
anpAfstanden in het heelal nemen toe met ongeveer eenhonderdste procent in anderhalf miljoen jaar. Als een ver sterrenstelsel nú op honderd miljoen lichtjaar staat, komt daar elke anderhalve eeuw één lichtjaar bij. Binnen ons eigen Melkwegstelsel speelt de uitdijing van het heelal al helemaal geen rol van betekenis.
Voorspellingen kloppen niet
Veel moeilijker is het om de afstand van een sterrenstelsel te meten. Ja, als elk sterrenstelsel precies evenveel licht zou uitstralen, was het niet zo ingewikkeld: de waargenomen helderheid aan de hemel vormde dan een nauwkeurige indicatie voor de afstand. Maar sterrenstelsels zijn er in allerlei soorten, maten en lichtsterktes. Het is alsof je in een nachtelijk landschap staat, met overal straatlantaarns in de verte. Als die niet allemaal hetzelfde vermogen aan licht uitstralen, heb je natuurlijk geen idee over hun werkelijke afstanden: een lamp van 100 watt op een kilometer afstand ziet er even helder uit als een schijnwerper van 2.500 watt op vijf kilometer. Door in andere sterrenstelsels te kijken naar bepaalde sterren en supernova-explosies waarvan de werkelijke lichtkracht wél precies bekend is, hebben Riess en zijn collega’s de afstandsbepalingen enorm sterk verbeterd. De foutmarge is teruggebracht tot minder dan 2,5 procent. Dat lukte dankzij de extreme meetnauwkeurigheid van de Hubble Space Telescope. En door die afstanden te vergelijken met de gemeten roodverschuivingen, is de huidige uitdijingssnelheid van het heelal nu ook heel precies achterhaald. Die blijkt 9 procent hoger te zijn dan je zou verwachten op basis van de Planck-metingen aan de kosmische achtergrondstraling. ‘Een behoorlijk serieus verschil’, aldus Riess.
Vandaar die noodkreet: help, het heelal dijt te snel uit. Of, liever gezegd: help, de voorspellingen kloppen niet, dus er is iets mis met het kosmologisch standaardmodel, want daar moet volgens Riess de oplossing gezocht worden. Mogelijkheden genoeg. Misschien bevat het heelal wel een tot dusver onbekend ingrediënt waarmee in de voorspellingen geen rekening is gehouden, zoals een nieuw type neutrino. Misschien gedraagt de mysterieuze donkere materie zich wel anders dan gedacht; ook recente metingen aan koel waterstofgas in het vroege heelal lijken daarop te wijzen. Of misschien is de al even raadselachtige donkere energie (die verantwoordelijk wordt gehouden voor de versnellende uitdijing van het heelal) niet constant, en is de versnelling zélf ook aan het toenemen.
Korrel zout
Niet iedereen staat trouwens in de alarmmodus. Kosmoloog Michael Troxel van de Ohio State University maakt zich bijvoorbeeld geen zorgen. ‘Het kosmologisch model, met donkere materie en donkere energie, staat als een huis’, aldus Troxel, die daarmee impliceert dat de nieuwe resultaten van Riess met een korrel zout genomen moeten worden. Ook Koen Kuijken van de Leidse Sterrewacht is nog niet overtuigd van de ernst van de situatie. ‘Het is een moeilijke analyse’, zegt hij. ‘Als ik mijn geld erop moest inzetten, zou ik gokken dat de metingen en de voorspellingen uiteindelijk toch wel met elkaar in overeenstemming zullen zijn. Aan beide kanten worden de onzekerheden in de resultaten vermoedelijk onderschat.’ Maar niemand kan eromheen dat de afstandsmetingen nooit eerder zó precies zijn uitgevoerd. En het team van Riess is ook niet van plan om op zijn lauweren te gaan rusten. ‘Als de Hubble-telescoop nog vijf jaar in bedrijf blijft’, aldus de Nobelprijswinnaar, ‘gaan we misschien wel vijftig supernova’s in andere sterrenstelsels zien. Dan kunnen we de foutmarge terugbrengen tot minder dan 1 procent.’ Ook nieuwe meetresultaten van de Europese ruimtetelescoop Gaia, die eind april gepresenteerd gaan worden, zullen bijdragen aan een hogere nauwkeurigheid.
Het kosmologisch model, met donkere materie en donkere energie, staat als een huis
Nieuwe inzichten
Kuijken verwacht in de komende jaren vooral veel van metingen aan zwaartekrachtgolven - minieme rimpelingen in de ruimtetijd, veroorzaakt wanneer twee zwarte gaten of extreem compacte sterren in een ver sterrenstelsel op elkaar knallen. ‘Die waarnemingen vertellen je meteen wat de afstand tot dat sterrenstelsel is, zonder ingewikkelde tussenstappen’, zegt hij. ‘Tot nu toe is dat nog maar één keer gelukt, zodat de nauwkeurigheid nog niet hoog genoeg is, maar als we in de toekomst meer van dat soort verschijnselen ontdekken, leidt dat tot een heel exacte waarde voor de uitdijingssnelheid van het heelal.’ Of er dan nog steeds zo’n groot verschil bestaat tussen metingen en voorspellingen? Riess lijkt er niet aan te twijfelen. ‘Eerdere raadsels rond de uitdijingssnelheid van het heelal hebben ook steeds geleid tot opzienbarende nieuwe inzichten. We zitten nu opnieuw in een crisis. Ik ben benieuwd tot wat voor revolutionaire ontdekkingen dit zal leiden.’
We zitten nu opnieuw in een crisis. Ik ben benieuwd tot wat voor revolutionaire ontdekkingen dit zal leiden
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Two UFO Orbs Following Eagle Recording Its Behavior Over Mountain In New Jersey, March 2018, UFO Sighting News. Date of sighting: March 8, 2018 Location of sighting: Mount Laurel, New Jersey, USA Source: MUFON #90651 MUFON no longer allows people to
Two UFO Orbs Following Eagle Recording Its Behavior Over Mountain In New Jersey, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 8, 2018 Location of sighting: Mount Laurel, New Jersey, USA Source: MUFON #90651 MUFON no longer allows people to see the eyewitness statement sadly. I'm not sure why they would not want the public to know the truth...but thats another conspiracy. In these photos, we see an eagle and several UFO orbs in the sky above the trees. The orbs may be interested in the bird itself, following it and recording its actions and behavior. This orb is small, not large as you can see in comparison with the bird itself. Scott C. Waring
Buzz Aldrin Confirms UFO Sighting in Syfy's 'Aliens on the Moon' ET Exclusive Video, UFO Sighting News.
Buzz Aldrin Confirms UFO Sighting in Syfy's 'Aliens on the Moon' ET Exclusive Video, UFO Sighting News.
Buzz has usually kept quite about aliens and UFOs, but as he got older, he realised just how important it is for humanity to know that we are not alone in the universe. Because being alone, makes humans feel special, significant, Gods only creation if you will. But guess what? Buzz Aldrin is here to burst that bubble. Scott C. Waring
UFO over Lunar Module of Apollo Mission, from NASA archives, slow motion, discovered Feb 6, 2012, UFO Sighting News.
UFO over Lunar Module of Apollo Mission, from NASA archives, slow motion, discovered Feb 6, 2012, UFO Sighting News.
This alien probe moves lighting fast, very hard to catch but in slow motion, it's easy.
Date of sighting: 1968-1970 Location of sighting: Orbiting Earth's Moon I was messing around last night and found this old NASA footage. In it were a few anomalies that did not look like the old film errors. I paused it several times till I could see the object and to my surprise it looked like a three dimensional alien probe. I put the screenshots and video into slow motion and also put the original footage in it. I know this is old stuff but this UFO has never been reported before now and it was recorded between 1968-1970 but its unclear. This is the first time that humans crossed onto the dark side of the moon. I noticed the metallic-like surface of it and it's odd crystal-like shape makes me believe it was made from biomechanics, or a machine that was grown. SCW
Go Fast: The third of the three official USG UFO Videos - So What?
Go Fast: The third of the three official USG UFO Videos - So What?
GO FAST is the third of three official USG videos selected for release after official review by multiple government organizations.
While To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science was the first to obtain a copy, it should be available to any member of the press or public via the Freedom of Information Act.
This footage was captured by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet using the Raytheon ATFLIR Pod that was being operated by a highly trained aerial observer and weapons system operator whom the government has spent millions of dollars to train.
Go Fast reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast of the United States in 2015 and the object in view remains unidentified.
Read further analysis of what is being observed in Go Fast on https://coi.tothestarsacademy.com/
Note: I’m not impressed by the blurry footage and in my opinion it does not really contribute anything to their so-called UFO disclosure project.
War Zone has obtained these audio recordings also via the Freedom of Information Act, then you might wonder, if War Zone can get these important recordings why Tom de Longe, who is on top of the information, apparently lets these recordings pass by.
The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?
The military keeps encountering UFOs. Why doesn’t the Pentagon care?
We have no idea what’s behind these weird incidents because we’re not investigating.
By Christopher Mellon
Christopher Mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. He is a private equity investor and an adviser to the To the Stars Academy for Arts and Science.
InDecember,the Defense Department declassified two videos documenting encounters between U.S. Navy F-18 fighters and unidentified aircraft. The first video captures multiple pilots observing and discussing a strange, hovering, egg-shaped craft, apparently one of a “fleet” of such objects, according to cockpit audio. The second shows a similar incident involving an F-18 attached to the USS Nimitz carrier battle group in 2004.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies. Defense Department officials who analyze the relevant intelligence confirm more than a dozen such incidents off the East Coast alone since 2015. In another recent case, the Air Force launched F-15 fighters last October in a failed attempt to intercept an unidentified high-speed aircraft looping over the Pacific Northwest .
A third declassified video, released by To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science , a privately owned media and scientific research company to which I’m an adviser, reveals a previously undisclosed Navy encounter that occurred off the East Coast in 2015.
Watch: Military jet video tracks high-speed UFO
(To the Stars Academy of Arts & Science)
Is it possible that America has been technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China? Or, as many people wondered after the videos were first published by the New York Times in December, might they be evidence of some alien civilization?
Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.
I served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I know from numerous discussions with Pentagon officials over the past two years that military departments and agencies treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation. A colleague of mine at To the Stars Academy, Luis Elizondo, used to run a Pentagon intelligence program that examined evidence of “anomalous” aircraft, but he resigned last fall to protest government inattention to the growing body of empirical data.
Meanwhile, reports from different services and agencies remain largely ignored and unevaluated inside their respective bureaucratic stovepipes. There is no Pentagon process for synthesizing all the observations the military is making. The current approach is equivalent to having the Army conduct a submarine search without the Navy. It is also reminiscent of the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI before Sept. 11, 2001, when each had information on the hijackers that they kept to themselves. In this instance, the truth may ultimately prove benign, but why leave it to chance?
(A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to requests from The Washington Post for comment, but in December, the military confirmed the existence of a program to investigate UFOs and said it had stopped funding the research in 2012.)
The military personnel who are encountering these phenomena tell remarkable stories. In one example, over the course of two weeks in November 2004, the USS Princeton, a guided-missile cruiser operating advanced naval radar, repeatedly detected unidentified aircraft operating in and around the Nimitz carrier battle group, which it was guarding off the coast of San Diego. In some cases, according to incident reports and interviews with military personnel, these vehicles descended from altitudes higher than 60,000 feet at supersonic speeds, only to suddenly stop and hover as low as 50 feet above the ocean. The United States possesses nothing capable of such feats.
On at least two occasions, F-18 fighters were guided to intercept these vehicles and were able to verify their location, appearance and performance. Notably, these encounters occurred in broad daylight and were independently monitored by radars aboard multiple ships and aircraft. According to naval aviators I have spoken with at length, the vehicles were roughly 45 feet long and white. Yet these mysterious aircraft easily sped away from and outmaneuvered America’s front-line fighters without a discernible means of propulsion.
From my work with To the Stars Academy, which seeks to raise private funds to investigate incidents like the 2004 Nimitz encounter, I know they continue to occur, because we are being approached by military personnel who are concerned about national security and frustrated by how the Defense Department is handling such reports. I am also familiar with the evidence as a former Pentagon intelligence official and a consultant who began researching the issue after the Nimitz incident was brought to my attention. On several occasions, I have met with senior Pentagon officials, and at least one followed up and obtained briefings confirming incidents such as the Nimitz case. But nobody wants to be “the alien guy” in the national security bureaucracy; nobody wants to be ridiculed or sidelined for drawing attention to the issue. This is true up and down the chain of command, and it is a serious and recurring impediment to progress.
If the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, so is the paralysis of the U.S. government in the face of such evidence. Sixty years ago, when the Soviet Union put the first manmade satellite in orbit, Americans recoiled at the idea of being technologically surpassed by a dangerous rival, and the furor over Sputnik ultimately produced the space race. Americans responded vigorously, and a little more than a decade later, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. If these craft mean that Russia, China or some other nation is concealing an astonishing technological breakthrough to quietly extend its lead, surely we should respond as we did then. Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent chest-thumping claims about propulsion breakthroughs are not pure braggadocio. Or, if these craft really aren’t from Earth, then the need to figure out what they are is even more urgent.
Lately, media coverage of the issue of unidentified aerial vehicles has focused on an expired $22 million congressional earmark for Bigelow Aerospace, a contractor with ties to former Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.). The money mostly funded research and analysis by that contractor, without participation from the Air Force, NORAD or other key military organizations. The real issue, though, is not a long-gone earmark, helpful though it may have been, but numerous recent incidents involving the military and violations of U.S. airspace. It is time to set aside taboos regarding “UFOs” and instead listen to our pilots and radar operators.
Within a roughly $50 billion annual intelligence budget, money is not the issue. Existing funds would easily cover what’s needed to look into the incidents. What we lack above all is recognition that this issue warrants a serious collection and analysis effort. To make headway, the task needs to be assigned to an official with the clout to compel collaboration among disparate and often quarrelsome national security bureaucracies. A truly serious effort would involve, among other things, analysts able to review infrared satellite data, NORAD radar databases, and signals and human intelligence reporting. Congress should require an all-source study by the secretary of defense while promoting research into new forms of propulsion that might explain how these vehicles achieve such extraordinary power and maneuverability.
As with Sputnik, the national security implications of these incidents are concerning — but the scientific opportunities are thrilling. Who knows what perils we may avoid or opportunities we might identify if we follow the data? We cannot afford to avert our eyes, }given the risk of strategic surprise. The future belongs to not only the physically brave but also the intellectually agile.
The Earth’s magnetic field continues to be a source of mystery for geologists and planetary scientists. Thanks to improved techniques of detecting measuring the geomagnetic field, scientists now know that the Earth’s magnetic field is weakening – despite having no explanation for the phenomenon. Other studies have found cracks opening in the magnetic field, potentially allowing more cosmic radiation to bombard us unfortunate saps here on the planet’s surface. To make magnetic matters more mysterious (and terrifying), a massive new magnetic anomaly has been detected in the southern hemisphere under Africa. What does this mean for the Earth’s magnetic field and the living things who depend on it for protection?
And will Santa have to find a new home when the poles reverse?
Unfortunately, we don’t know yet. But no news is better than bad news, right? The region of the Earth’s magnetic field under study is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly and stretches under the southern Atlantic ocean from Chile to Zimbabwe. In this region, the geomagnetic field comes closer to the Earth’s surface than anywhere else on Earth, reaching down to an altitude of 200 kilometres, or 120 miles. This makes it a prime site for studying the magnetic field since the low altitude means the effects of the field can be detected much easier. In the case of discovering this new anomaly, researchers from the University of Rochester examined 1,000-year-old pottery made by the Bantu people to search for magnetic minerals baked into the clay which serve as a type of record. The minerals in the pottery revealed similar magnetic anomalies occurred in 400-450 AD, 700-750 AD, and sometime between 1225-1550 AD.
The South Atlantic Anomaly
University of Rochester Earth and Environmental Sciences professor John Tarduno led this new study of the South Atlantic Anomaly. In a university press release announcing the discovery, Tarduno says while its too early to draw conclusions about pole reversal or any type of cataclysmic event, this anomaly deserves serious study so that scientists and world leaders can be aware of any potential harmful effects:
We were looking for recurrent behavior of anomalies because we think that’s what is happening today and causing the South Atlantic Anomaly. We’re getting stronger evidence that there’s something unusual about the core-mantle boundary under Africa that could be having an important impact on the global magnetic field. The possibility of a continued decay in the strength of the magnetic field is a societal concern that merits continued study and monitoring.
There is a growing body of evidence suggesting Earth’s magnetic poles have reversed many times over the planet’s history, or even that Earth once had more than two magnetic poles. It’s still unknown what effect(s) a pole reversal might have today in an age dependent on electronics.
Over the years UFOs have had various names, depending on the era and the description of the craft. In the latter part of the 19th century there were the “Phantom Airships.” During the Second World War pilots encountered what became known as “Foo Fighters.” In 1946 the skies of Scandinavia were filled with reports of “Ghost Rockets.” In the summer of 1947 the terms “Flying Saucer” and “Flying Disc” were both used. Today,
people talk about the “Flying Triangles.”
Yes, “Foo Fighter” was the primary term used to describe what was seen during the Second World War. But, the term “Disc” was also used during the hostilities with the Nazis. I mentioned this to a certain UFO researcher recently and who practically had a shit fit. I was wrong, he assured me, stating that when it comes to unidentified “things” in the sky, the word “Disc” was not used until 1947. Actually, that’s wrong, as I pointed out. Granted, many people – even within Ufology – may not know just how widely “Disc” was used during the Second World War. I’ll share two examples with you; two of many.
From the latter part of the Second World War (the exact date is missing) comes the following from the in-house newsletter of the British Royal Air Force’s, 115 Squadron: “Under this heading there occur from time to time reports of weird and wonderful apparitions seen during our (and the American) attacks on Germany. We have asked our local Inner Circle bloke to comment on the latest species of wizardry. Here is his story…believe it or not.”
The document continues in slightly humorous fashion: “On the 11th December the Yanks paid one of their daylight visits to Emden. Visibility was good and the weather clear. An unidentified object was seen in the target area. It was about the size of a Thunderbolt and passed 50 – 75 yards beneath the formation. It flew straight and level (No chaps it was not a Lanc.gone mad…) at a terrific speed, leaving a streak like a vapour trail which remained visible for a long time. The object passed so quickly that the observer could not determine it more accurately.
Finally, there is this, also from the same document: “Suggestions will be welcome…serious ones…as to what this Loch Ness Monster of Emden might have been. (Prize… one year’s free issue of this News Sheet…if the publication survives as long.) Another of the attacking aircraft was hit by a length of wire which bit deeply into the nose. Twenty feet were coiled around the nose and something caused the bomb door to open. The wire may have been towed behind a fighter which had just made an attack upon the bomber; some form of explosive charge or weight may have been attached to a parachute fired from a rocket projectile, though no parachute was seen. An examination of the wire is taking place and it is hoped that this will shed some light on the occurrence. In another attack, this time on Bremen, there were many reports of ‘silver and red discs above the formations [italics mine].’ These have been seen before but up to now no-one has been able to decide their purpose. Suggestions please.”
Then, there is a document dispatched to a Colonel Kingman Douglas, to Wing-Commander Smith of Royal Air Force Intelligence, and to a Wing-Commander Heath of the British Air Ministry. We’re told:
“Annexe to intelligence report mission Schweinfurt 16 October 1943. 306 Group report a partially unexploded 20mm shell embedded above the panel in the cockpit of A/C number 412 bearing the following figures, 19K43. The Group Ordinance Officer believes the steel composing the shell is of inferior grade. 348th Group reports a cluster of discs [italics mine] observed in the path of the formation near Schweinfurt, at the time there are no E/A [Authors note: Enemy Aircraft] above. Discs were described [again, italics mine]as silver coloured – one inch thick and three inches in diameter. They were gliding slowly down in very uniform cluster. A/C 026 was unable to avoid them and his right wing went directly through the cluster with absolutely no effect on engines or plane’s surface. One of the discs [again…] was heard striking tail assembly but no explosion was heard. About twenty feet from these discs [and one more] a mass of black debris of varying sizes in clusters of 3 by 4 feet. Also observed 2 other A/C flying through silver discs with no apparent damage. Observed discs [final one] and debris 2 other times but could not determine where it came from.”
These are just two examples of many from the Second World War – and declassified by the British Government – which refer to UFOs as “Discs” several years before the term “Flying Disc” was created in 1947. In some of the declassified wartime files, the “Discs” were described as being mere inches in size. On other occasions, though, pilots reported such “Discs” as being several feet in diameter – and in a few cases even bigger.
And, while we’re still on the game of the name, it’s worth noting that the words “Unidentified Flying Objects” were used as early as just two months after the Kenneth Arnold sighting of June 24, 1947. This was when the words “Flying Disc” and “Flying Saucer” were on the minds of many. The relevant document originated with the U.S. Air Transport Command’s Weekly Intelligence Summary and is dated August 1947. It is titled “Flying Objects in Guam” and the text states, in part, “Unidentified flying objects [italics mine…once again…) have been observed by three enlisted men of the 147th Airways and Air Communications Service Squadron at Harmon Field, Guam.”
Oxforddictionaries.comprovides the following: “According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term ‘unidentified flying object’ goes back at least to the 1950s: it is recorded in 1953, in a book by the US aviator and writer Donald Keyhoe. The OEDalso gives a citation in 1956 by Edward Ruppelt, an officer in the USAF, stating that he’d invented the term as a more general one to replace the earlier description for such objects, flying saucer.”
The dictionary is wrong (as was Ruppelt), as the Guam document of August 1947 demonstrates.
In November 2017, several commercial aircraft flying over the California/Oregon border area encountered an object in the skies the likes of which their pilots had never seen. Like in many UFO cases, the object maneuvered in ways impossible for today’s conventional aircraft and was completely unresponsive to radio and radar systems. The sightings were confirmed by both the FAA and NORAD, and a Freedom of Information Act request just last month uncovered audio recordings between air traffic controls and pilots made during the encounter which add a few details about pilot’s descriptions of the large, white unidentified aircraft flying at a high altitude.
To add to the mystery surrounding that November encounter, new recordings released by the FAA of a separate encounter months earlier seem to be describing an eerily similar object in the skies flying at altitudes much higher than commercial aircraft. The incident occurred on February 24th, 2017 above Southern Arizona. Flight N71PG, a Phoenix Air Learjet 36, and American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321, were flying above the Sonoran Desert National Monument when crews of both airliners spotted an unidentified, unresponsive aircraft flying over them at an estimated 40,000 feet.
The incident began when the Learjet first spotted the object. After seeing the object pass over his craft, the Learjet pilot told the FAA that something did pass overhead, remarking “I don’t know what it was, it wasn’t an airplane, but it was–the path was going in the opposite direction.” An audio recording of the conversations between pilots and air traffic controllers with the Albuquerque FAA was recently released by Tyler Rogoway at The Warzone. In the recording, pilots can be heard asking the FAA if they knew of any aircraft flying above them, to which of course the FAA responded they didn’t. One pilot can then be heard chuckling “a UFO!” to which another affirms “yeah.”
Air traffic controllers then asked the incoming American Airlines pilot to watch for anything flying overhead, to which the American Airlines pilot responded a few minutes later with “yeah something just passed over us, like a–I don’t know what it was, but it was at least two-three thousand feet above us. Yeah it passed right over the top of us.” Pilots and air traffic controllers then speculate about what the object might have been, with a few suggesting a Google balloon and others merely laughing it off as just a “UFO.”
Sure, it’s just a UFO, but the thought that there could be undisclosed high-altitude flights of any kind is pretty disconcerting. If someone or some group has the ability to operate in U.S. skies with near impunity outside of the scope of the FAA, that person or group must have a vast network of resources and wealth at their disposal. Who knows what they could be up to behind closed doors in the true halls of power? Of course, it could be aliens or some kind of autonomous craft sent from a distant star systems, but the chances are higher that these are some sort of shadowy paramilitary or surveillance activity that They don’t want us to know about.
Google Balloons are the new swamp gas.
Chances are highest, however, that the craft had something to do with one of the many nearby military sites: White Sands Missile Range, Holloman Air Force base, Luke AFB, Monthan AFB, and Fort Huachuca – the home of many the military’s most cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicles and a hub for clandestine military flights and tests. Who knows what the military industrial complex could be testing above our heads? I know one thing: it’s not Google Balloons.
Enkele dagen geleden schreven wij een artikel met daarin vreemde verschijnselen in de lucht, van een tweede zon tot een vreemd oranje-achtige lucht in Amerika.
Nu zijn er vergelijkbare beelden opgedoken vanuit Engeland, personeel van een televisiestation in Milwaukee weet niet wat ze zien en de bewoners van Hawaï zien vreemde lichtstralen.
Het begint zo regelmatig voor te komen dat er vreemde zaken in de lucht waar te nemen zijn, dat hier zo langzamerhand een dagelijks item van te maken is.
Enkele dagen geleden lieten wij beelden zien van een vreemde oranje lucht in de Amerikaanse staat Utah. Naar aanleiding daarvan kregen we de volgende mail van een lezer (dank!):
Als je praat over wat je heb gezien aan abnormaliteit in de lucht, en je heb geen foto of videootje dan is het moeilijk te plaatsen voor een ander.
Nu ik die video zie die jullie vandaag gepost hebben, kan ik zeggen dat ik dit al drie keer heb gezien in mijn regio, het was ook een lokaal stuk, niet de hele lucht was zo oranje.
Blij dat ik dit nog even kan duidelijk maken.
De foto's die ik later heb gemaakt, en naar jullie heb gestuurd, daar kwam de kleur niet goed over maar zag er zeker zo uit.
Ik ging al twijfelen aan mezelf, ha!
En dan is er de volgende opname die is gemaakt in de Engelse stad Middlesborough door Craig Alderton. Hij is stomverbaasd door wat hij ziet; het zijn geen straatlantaarns of een brand ergens, maar het lijkt alsof de oranje lucht pulseert.
Dat zijn dan mensen in Amerika, Engeland en Nederland die dit soort vreemde oranje luchten hebben gezien.
Op dinsdagmorgen 27 februari 2018 was er in het televisieprogramma van Fox6 in de Amerikaanse staat Milwaukee iets merkwaardigs te zien. Vreemde lichten bewogen over het scherm tijdens de live uitzending. Je hoort de presentatoren die zich afvragen waar ze hier in 's hemelsnaam mee te maken hebben.
Later kwam er een officiële verklaring: het zou een zwerm zeemeeuwen zijn geweest. En dan naar Hawaï, waar via een webcam van een observatorium tijdens de nacht van 13 op 14 februari 2018 een aantal vreemde zaken zichtbaar waren.
Op een gegeven moment verschijnen er een aantal blauwe stralen die er als volgt uit zien.
Even later verschijnt er ook een soort witte straal.
In de volgende video zie je de blauwe stralen rond de 35/36 seconden in de video.
Het atmosferische verschijnsel van een lichtzuil is een bekend fenomeen, maar ook dat schijnt hier niet van toepassing te zijn:
Een lichtzuil is een atmosferisch optisch verschijnsel in de vorm van een verticale lichtkolom die zich boven of onder een lichtbron, zoals de zon of maan, lijkt uit te strekken. Lichtzuilen behoren tot de familie van halo's en worden veroorzaakt door de reflectie van licht tegen zeshoekige ijskristallen (veelal in de vorm van cirrus- of cirrostratuswolken) die min of meer horizontaal door de lucht zweven en aldus als spiegeltjes fungeren.
Representative Rob Wittman (R-Va), a powerful member of the House Armed Services Committee, talked in an unprecedentedly open nature about the shadowy B-21 Raider program during a defense conference in Washington, DC. In his remarks he described the program as largely on track, but did detail a couple notable issues, one in particular having to do with the aircraft's stealthy air inlet system and engine and exhaust configuration. He also noted that an "Iron Bird," basically a non-flying, full-scale, systems configuration model of the aircraft, was being made to ease component integration issues.
Defense News's Aaron Mehta and Valerie Insinna published the initial reportabout Wittman's remarks in which he described a few of the 'hiccups' associated with the bomber's accelerated development, almost all of which remains deeply classified. The development cost alone for the aircraft is slated to run over $20B, with the program cost to build at least 100 of the bombers projected to cost upwards of $100B.
AP
Representative Rob Wittman is the chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.
As for the aircraft's 'hiccups,' Wittman noted to reporters:
“This is an extraordinary, complex aircraft... The issue is not that you have these uncertainties. The issue is how you address them.”
But powerplant integration and airflow issues seem to be particularly vexing for the program judging by the Congressman's remarks:
“This is a very, very different design as far as airflow, and there have been some design challenges there... Pratt and Whitney says one thing; if the exhaust, the ducting contractor says another thing and says, ‘There’s only so much air we can move through there,’ and Pratt & Whitney says, ‘No, we need a certain amount of air to go through the front of the engine,’ then the question is, how do you do that?... Do you split [the requirements] between the two? Does Pratt & Whitney say, ‘Well, we can change some of the cowling on the surface face there to be able to do that'... It’s not just the engine, but it’s the ducting on the engine, too. I think all those things are elements that you would normally expect in an aircraft that’s new, that takes a concept from B-2, refines and uses it on this platform.”
Wittman was also fully aware that messing with the B-21's inlet design could have a major impact on its low-observability, and he is very much right for elevating those concerns. The inlet design of a low observable aircraft is among its most finely tuned and critical features. A jet aircraft's radar cross section is largely impacted by its ability to conceal the fan blades of its jet engines from radar waves. At the same time 'burying' jet engines deep behind a complex duct system is not conducive to allowing for the consistent and massive volume of airflow needed to produce high and reliable thrust.
LOCKHEED MARTIN
The F-35 uses a 'Y' shaped inlet to completely hide the F135 turbofan's first stage from line of sight. The bumps you see are part of its Diverterless Supersonic Inlet (DSI) design which solves boundary air layer separation issues through its bulbous shape. You can read more about this concept here.
Even the use of serpentine ducts that conceal a jet engine's fan face from line-of-sight are also usually accompanied by other hidden low observable features. These can include baffles mounted directly in front of the engine's face, radar disruptive structures installed under the intake's skin, and radar absorbent coatings surrounding and lining the intake itself.
Issues with stealthy aircraft designs and airflow to their jet engines are nothing new. In fact it dates back to the dawn of stealth, and Northrop's own progenitor to the B-2—Tacit Blue (aka The Whale)—had major issues even starting due to its dorsal shared inlet design and twin engine configuration.
NORTHROP
Tacit Blue featured a recessed dorsal inlet that housed two engines side-by-side.
The B-21's design is supposedly optimized for broadband stealth from virtually all directions—more so than its B-2 forebear that gave up some low-observability, as well as altitude performance, for a capability it has never used. Fielding the most low-observable engine configuration, to include a stealth optimized inlet and exhaust, is surely a key element of the program, but we know very little about any of it.
We have had good indications for some time that B-21 will likely utilize two engines instead of the B-2's four. A non-afterburning and tweaked variant of Pratt and Whitney's F135 turbofan found on the F-35 fighter is rumored to be the powerplant of choice. That engine, without major tweaks that will surely be made for use on the B-21, puts out 28,000lbs of 'dry' thrust (without afterburner). With modifications, this number would likely climb into the 30,000lb+ thrust category.
In comparison, the B-2A has four General Electric F118 engines that put out 17,300lbs of thrust each. The B-21 will almost certainly be a smaller design, with a payload of about two thirds to half that of the B-2. Thus the twin-engine design with a pair of roughly 30,000lb thrust class powerplants makes some sense.
But regardless of who makes the engines for the B-21, or even if it has two engines instead of four, without a good inlet design that can deliver optimum airflow to the air thirsty engines during various phases of flight, their thrust ratings as advertised will plummet significantly. This can impact range, ceiling, and especially takeoff performance.
USAF
This photo offers a great look at the B-2's complex low observable inlet design which blocks line of sight to the engine face aside from certain elevated angles from the forward hemisphere. Notice how the stealthy intake still features a splitter plane for separating boundary layer air from the fuselage.
From the only concept art we have showing the B-21 the inlet design, it looks to be more seamlessly streamlined and integrated in the aircraft's upper fuselage, as opposed to the B-2's design which uses s-like ducts housed in protruding dome-like inlets to feed air to its engines. If the B-21's inlet is as flush as it looks in the concept art, managing boundary layer airflow will also be an issue and could impact airflow as well.
Clearly de-conflicting inlet configuration and airflow management for such an exotic design would be challenging, but we will have to wait to see just how much of a preference ends up being put on this feature, especially if an extremely low-observable inlet design starts eating into hard performance requirements severely, one of which is very likely a high operating altitude of around 60,000 feet or more.
The B-21's exhaust is a total mystery. We have no idea what it will look like, but it's totally possible that the twin planar type exhausts found on the B-2 will be a thing of the past. Ducting the exhaust out of a larger portion of the bomber's upper trailing edge is a possibility, not just to drastically reduce the aircraft's infrared signature but to also provide better stability during engine-out conditions. Going from four engines to two would complicate scenarios where an engine has to be shut down in flight, especially for a flying wing design with very limited longitudinal stability as it is. It is also possible that the exhausts from both engines will be ducted towards the centerline of the B-21's "V" shaped tail, mitigating engine-out controllability issue to a large degree.
The main point here is that powerplant integration on a very low-observable and exotic aircraft is a very big issue, but at the same time it is hardly unforeseeable that problems would arise in this department considering what we know about the program's ambitions.
Wittman also mentioned that the aircraft's wing design is something of an roadblock, but we don't really have any details as to why. We have posited that one "bleeding edge" stealth technology that could potentially be incorporated into the B-21's design is so called "morphing wing" technology. If this concept is being used to any degree it would drastically complicate the wing design and fabrication process, but the low-observable payoff could be significant. Wittman also mentioned that Northrop Grumman is having issues stacking enough engineers onto the program to keep up with its ambitious timeline, which really isn't a surprise.
Beyond propulsion, bringing in all the subcontractors together to participate efficiently in building out the bomber is also a challenge. The Congressman noted that Northrop Grumman is working on that aforementioned "Iron Bird" full-scale mock up to better stave off major systems integration issues.
This is clearly more information on the B-21's development than we have ever gotten before, and the fact that it is coming from a Congressman and not the USAF or even Northrop Grumman seems very odd. Also the implied timeline conflicts somewhat with recent comments made by the 412th Test Wing commander, who noted just last week that testing will begin of the B-21 at Edwards AFB in the near future.
We don't know exactly what that means, but it seems that the program would need a flying example of the aircraft within the next 24 months or so to have any hope of staying on track developmentally speaking. Then again it's also very possible that the congressman could have been referring to issues in the past that he has been briefed on, we just don't know.
The USAF is counting on the B-21 reaching initial operating capability by roughly 2025, at which time it will begin replacing B-2s and B-1Bs that together currently makeup the majority of the USAF's bomber fleet.
A group of researchers led by Oliver Tschauner, a professor of geoscience from the University of Nevada, have discovered a form of super-dense ice known as ice-VII on Earth for the first time. Though ice-VII was known to form in space, and may make up much of ice worlds like Europa, it had only been created in lab conditions on Earth. Tschauner and colleagues findings were published today in Science.
What we know as ice is just one of many chemical structures that frozen water can take. That ice in your soda is technically known as ice-I in which water molecules are arranged in a hexagonal shape. But as water is compressed, the molecules begins to take on different shapes. Ice-VII, which until now has never been found naturally on Earth, has a cubic molecular shape, and is one and a half times as dense as regular ice.
Some diamonds (like these) are for people who like bling, but others are for scientists who want to know more about the Earth's interior.
(Jack Guez / AFP/Getty Images)
Researchers stumbled onto a native ice-VII sample by accident, inside a diamond formed deep in the Earth's mantle, as much as 400 miles beneath the crust. The pressure in the mantle is intense, causing diamonds to form from carbon. But sometimes other substances, like water, get trapped inside these diamonds, in what's known as an incursion.
The mantle is very hot, so there's no way for ice to form there. In very rare cases, as diamonds travel up through the mantle and crust to the Earth's surface, they maintain their tight lattice structure, and the water inside them is exposed to low enough temperatures that ice-VII can form.
"Usually the extremely deep minerals that come up to the surface are not stable once they experience low pressures," George Rossman, a Caltech mineralogist who worked on the study told the LA Times. "They crack and whatever inclusions they had in them are lost. But if a diamond comes up fast enough, it doesn't change."
As Rossman and the other researchers were X-raying diamonds to examine them for carbon dioxide incursions, they realized they'd actually discovered naturally occurring ice-VII. "We were all very excited about that," Tschauner told the LA Times.
"Water in diamonds is not unknown, but finding this very high pressure form of water ice intact, that was really fortuitous," Rossman told the newspaper. 'That's what you call discovery."
The United States Army is looking into a way to carry heavy weapons that will definitely look familiar to science fiction fans. The Army is testing a weapons mount straight out of the movie Aliens, one capable of taking the weight of a light machine gun.
The Army Research Lab, located at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is working on a waist-mounted, articulated arm that can carry a M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. The device consists of an articulated arm connected to a wearable harness, with a total weight of 3.5 pounds. The device can carry items up to 27 pounds, the weight of a loaded SAW, or 20-pound defensive shield to protect the holder from gunfire.
In the movie Aliens, a heavily-armed U.S. Colonial Marine platoon is sent to investigate the colony of Hadley's Hope on planetoid Acheron LV-426 in 2179, and the unit’s machine gunners carry their M56 Smart Guns on a harness nearly identical purpose to the design being refined at ARL. The fictional smart gun, with its high rate of fire is nearly identical in role to today’s M249.
According to ARL, engineers started brainstorming in 2015 looking to increase the lethality of dismounted soldiers. A prototype was completed in 2016. The arm is meant to reduce muscle fatigue and create a stable firing platform for heavy, high recoil weapons. Some other key problems engineers are addressing are making the arm useable by a wide range of body types and balancing the entire harness and arm system against the soldier’s weight. The current version uses carbon fiber to replace component weight.
In 2017, six soldiers tested the arm, fitted with electromyography sensors to measure muscle activity. ARL mechanical engineer Dan Baechle explained on the U.S. Army web site, "We found that it reduced the fatigue and reduced the muscle activation for some Soldiers." The ARL also collected data on how soldiers were using their muscles with the third arm compared to without it.
Oddly enough, ARL scientists have actually improved upon the technology of 2179. In the film, the arm harness is attached to the gunner’s waist. The Army’s arm harness also originally attached to the waist, but soldiers had problems with the device and the harness was moved to the soldier’s back. Even better, the arm is a high-tech item that doesn’t demand a power source, and won't add batteries or a power generation scheme to the soldier’s load.
The 'Alien Movie Arm,' as the harness is undoubtedly destined to be known as, is still undergoing testing to improve ergonomics and aiming accuracy.
It seems likely that some form of the arm will eventually make it out to the troops. When it does, soldiers who carry the Army’s heavy weapons will be able to carry their weapons longer and with less fatigue, staying rested for the the fight—just like the alien-slaying soldiers of 2179.
Species like vestimentiferan tubeworms, Riftia pachyptila, such as these found found near the Galapagos islands, represent the kinds of life that can persist near deep sea hydrothermal vents.
Credit: NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, Galapagos Rift Expedition 2011.
Alien life could potentially exist on the undersides of the icy shells of Jupiter’s moon Europa and other frozen worlds thanks to the intersection of chemical energy rising up from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor and oxidants diffusing down from the surface.
Global oceans exist hidden beneath the icy crusts of bodies such as Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan. Unlike Earth’s oceans, which are heated from above by the Sun, these vast water bodies are likely warmed from below by hydrothermal vents in the seafloor.
One potential source of the key building blocks of life in these hidden oceans could be chemical reactions between the seawater and the seafloor or the hydrothermal vents. Heat from hydrothermal vents would churn these waters, shuffling microbes and nutrients upward.
At the same time, high-energy electrons bombarding the icy surfaces of these frozen worlds from their nearby giant planets would generate chemicals known as oxidants, which could help organisms make use of fuel molecules, just as oxygen helps life on Earth burn nutrients for energy. Churning of the icy crusts could deliver these oxidants into the hidden oceans.
Astrobiologist Michael Russell at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and his colleagues suggest that where an icy crust and a hidden ocean meet in a frozen world such as Europa, these two sources of the building blocks of life could join together and potentially support the evolution of life. At the underside of Europa’s icy crust, they suggest a shallow biosphere – a network of ecosystems – can form.
“All the ingredients and free energy required for life are all focused in one place,” Russell says.
The scientists detailed their research in a published paper in the journal Astrobiology.
Europa’s surface is a shell of ice covering a global ocean and displaying amazing features. Long, linear cracks and ridges crisscross the surface, broken by regions of disrupted terrain where the crust of surface ice has cracked and refrozen into new patterns.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
The scientists noted that the layers where ice and water meet can support a wide variety of life on Earth. Dense communities of multiple species of algae, bacteria, protists and even multicellular invertebrates form annually under the sea ice near Antarctica when ample sunlight fuels the photosynthesis of the algae. Also, runoff from the sulfurous Gypsum Springs on Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian High Arctic is home to streamers of bacteria under the cover of snow and ice.
The researchers suggest their findings could help focus the search for any life on Europa by using robots to explore the undersides of icy crusts. They add that, on Europa, microbes could reach densities comparable to microbial mats on Earth.
“If we were to find life on Europa, then that would strongly support the submarine alkaline vent theory,” which suggests that life on Earth originated near underwater alkaline hydrothermal vents, says Russell.
Russell’s research was supported by the NASA Astrobiology Institute.
Aliens Here? Giant Spherical UFO Orb Spotted in the US (VIDEO)
Aliens Here? Giant Spherical UFO Orb Spotted in the US (VIDEO)
Video footage from Google Earth posted on the YouTube Channel UFOmania may prove that we’ve got company out there in the universe.
In the clip we see a camera zooming in on the globe before taking us to where a strange phenomenon has been spotted.
Floating up in the sky just east of Lake George in New York State is a round gray object. The camera zooms in to get a better picture of the strange object, but it is well-nigh impossible to make out what it really is.
The footage, which has already garnered over 20,000 views, may offer convincing proof of extraterrestrial life.
“Analyzed it and looked at it very closely and can confirm it is a UFO,” one viewer wrote.
“Everyone I know and I know a lot of people, know that UFOs are a fact, not a maybe,” added another.
Many past UFO reports describe round, spherical UFOs. It seems that this is the most common shape of UFOs seen around the world.
Conspiracy Theorists Think They've Found A UFO On Google Maps, But The Actual Explanation Is Hilarious
Conspiracy Theorists Think They've Found A UFO On Google Maps, But The Actual Explanation Is Hilarious
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/
Conspiracy theorists think they have found photographic evidence of an alien spaceship visiting Earth on... Google Maps.
YouTube account UFOmania posted 'evidence' of a UFO sighting on their page yesterday. It has since been viewed thousands of times, with people thinking it's definitive proof that aliens are traveling all the way to Earth, stopping off for a quick photo opportunity, and then flying away without telling us.
Fellow conspiracy theorists, after viewing the footage and parsing it with everything they know about science and space travel, decided that on balance:
"THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE – so why does NASA, & the American military hide this shit @ every opportunity ?? F.T.N.W.O. ?? ??" and "[Everyone] knows UFOs are a fact, not a maybe."
Take a closer look and see if you can guess what it is. Google Maps
So after heading here all the way from some distant star, where did the UFO decide to visit? East Lake George in New York state. The aliens got all this way, made it to New York State, and couldn't even be bothered to check out Manhatten.
So, what actually is it? Some people have suggested, not unreasonably, that it could be a water droplet on the lens. This would explain why it looks greenish – it's just a distortion of the mountain behind it. Others have said it's probably a weather balloon, which is normally a good bet whenever somebody spots a UFO.
However, neither is the explanation. The actual explanation is much, much funnier than that.
Google Photosphere is an app that lets you take panoramic photos. You can then add them to Google Maps yourself. Why are we bringing this up?
Here is the Google Photosphere logo.
Google Photosphere
Notice something, uh, familiar about those contours? Here it is overlaid onto the UFO.
Google Photosphere / Google Maps
"HOLY CRAP!" we hear you cry, "the aliens are here and they've modeled their UFOs on Google logos!"
Settle down there. Before you leap to that conclusion, we'd like to propose an alternative hypothesis – a YouTube conspiracy theorist has mistaken a watermark for alien life, uploaded it, and a hilarious amount of people think it's proof that aliens exist.
The strange object appears to have crash-landed into snow and ice, before sliding across the surface and leaving a trail behind it.
It was found using Google Earth on South Georgia Island, which is located in the Southern Atlantic Ocean about 810 miles from The Falklands.
‘It appears to be some sort of massive elongated or cigar-shaped that at some point – and we don’t know when – came to a screeching halt in the snow,’ said SecureTeam10, the YouTube channel which made the sighting.
‘This could be something which came from the air and crash-landed.’
South Georgia Island is part of the British Overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
(Picture: Google Earth)
SecureTeam10 also suggested the weird ‘mass’ had smashed into a nearby mountain and left a trail of debris.
It also questioned whether the object could be a submarine stuck in the show.
The object is about 63 metres in length, which means it could not be a bobsleigh, SecureTeam10 continued.
Did the ‘mass’ slide down from the mountain?
(Picture: Google Earth)
Now Dave Petley, pro-vice-chancellor (research and innovation) at the University of Sheffield has stepped forward to claim the object broke off a nearby mountain and slid through the snow.
On his blog, he wrote: ‘This is conventional landslide behaviour on snow and ice covered surfaces, and we have seen other large isolated boulders travel long distances.’
Astronomers report no companion found for S2, the star orbiting near our Milky Way’s central black hole. It’s an “all-clear” for an exciting test of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
Artist’s concept of the orbit of the star S2 (sometimes S0-2), shown in light blue. In the next few months, this star is expected to plunge near a gigantic black hole in our galaxy.
Image via S. Sakai/A.Ghez/Keck Observatory/UCLA Galactic Center Group.
One of the fascinating findings of modern astronomy is that large galaxies, including our home galaxy the Milky Way, have supermassive black holes at their cores. The Milky Way’s central black hole is called Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A star”), or Sgr A* for short, and is known to have a mass of about 4 million suns. Astronomers recently watched a gas cloud plunge near the hole, and now they’re watching several stars orbiting near it, in particular a star called S2 (sometimes S0-2). Thanks to recent observations – published in the peer-reviewedAstrophysical Journal in late February, 2018 – astronomers with UCLA’s Galactic Center Group now say they have an “all-clear” to use S2 for a test of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
Until now, it was thought that S0-2 might be a double star. Two stars orbiting each other would have complicated the upcoming gravity test.
But a team of astronomers led by Devin Chu of Hilo, Hawaii – an astronomy grad student at UCLA – has found that S2 doesn’t have a companion:
… at least one that is massive enough to get in the way of critical measurements that astronomers need to test Einstein’s theory.
S2 is young and about 15 times more massive than our sun. That’s good; it means it’s bright, helpful because the star is relatively distant from Earth – in contrast to most Milky Way stars we might mention – at 26,000 light-years. Did you catch that number, 26,000 light-years? That’s our approximate distance from the center of the galaxy, and the weird and wonderful physics in play there.
In their recent study, Chu and his colleagues described an analysis of 87 previous measurements of S2, dating back as far as 2000. Of those, 12 were newly reported in this paper, taken between 2014 and 2016.
S2 is expected to make its closest pass by the black hole during 2018, and it’s when the star whips nearest the hole that the relativity test will take place. Astronomers will use the star’s motion to try to confirm the mass of the black hole (now thought to be about 4.15 million solar masses).
And they’ll also use S2’s motion to try to confirm Einstein’s prediction that very strong gravitational fields should “stretch out” wavelengths of light, causing a gravitational red shift.
UCLA grad student Devin Chu is 1st author on the new study, showing that S2 doesn’t have a companion star and clearing the way for the planned relativity tests.
Writing at SciFyWire, Bad Astronomer Phil Plait offered his usual great explanation of what’s about to happen:
[S2] orbits Sgr A* on an ellipse that takes about 15 years to complete. The diameter of its orbit is about 300 billion km [200 billion miles], which may sound like a lot, but we’re talking about a supermassive black hole here! That’s close!
And it gets closer. Because the orbit is an ellipse, the star drops down to a mere 18 billion km [11 billion miles] from the black hole, a positively terrifying close approach. That’s only four times farther from the black hole than Neptune is from our sun.
When it does this, the gravity of the black hole is so fierce it’ll accelerate the star to about 6,000 km [4,000 miles] per second — fast enough to cross the continental U.S. in less than a second …
That close to a black hole, relativistic effects predicted by Einstein’s equations start to become important. For example, the light from the star will have to fight the gravity of the black hole to get to us, losing energy on its way out. This is called a gravitational redshift. When an object approaches or moves away from an observer, the light shifts in wavelength a bit, which is just plain old redshift. The amount of the shift depends on the velocity.
In the case of S2, at closest approach gravitational redshift acts like another 200 kilometers per second added to the star’s motion! That’s enough to measure pretty easily, so astronomers should definitely see that.
Infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The position of the Milky Way’s central black hole – Sgr A* – is marked by an orange cross.
Image via ESO/ MPE/ S. Gillessen et al.
Astronomers with UCLA’s Galactic Center Group said they hope to witness the star being pulled at:
… maximum gravitational strength – a point where any deviation to Einstein’s theory is expected to be the greatest.
Tuan Do, deputy director of the Galactic Center Group, said in a statement:
It will be the first measurement of its kind. Gravity is the least well-tested of the forces of nature. Einstein’s theory has passed all other tests with flying colors so far, so if there are deviations measured, it would certainly raise lots of questions about the nature of gravity!
Devin Chu added:
We have been waiting 16 years for this. We are anxious to see how the star will behave under the black hole’s violent pull. Will S0-2 follow Einstein’s theory or will the star defy our current laws of physics? We will soon find out!
Astronomers with UCLA’s Galactic Center Group gather for a photo during a visit to Keck Observatory, located atop Maunakea, Hawaii. Members of the group will return to this site in the spring of 2018 to begin observations of S2 as the star travels towards its closest distance to our Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole.
By the way, in other news about our Milky Way’s black hole, scientists expect the first direct image of Sgr A* soon. So there are big, important research projects in play this year related to the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy.
Watch for the results of both, later in 2018.
Bottom line: Astronomers report an “all clear” – no companion found for S2, the star orbiting near our Milky Way’s central black hole. They hope to use this star later in 2018 for a test of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity.
Orkanen op Jupiter reiken tot wel 3000 kilometer diep
Orkanen op Jupiter reiken tot wel 3000 kilometer diep
Caroline Kraaijvanger
De winden op de machtige gasreus zijn allesbehalve oppervlakkig.
Jupiter is een gasreus, wat betekent dat deze voornamelijk uit gas bestaat en geen vast oppervlak heeft. De zware planeet – Jupiter heeft ongeveer 2,5 keer zoveel massa als alle andere planeten in het zonnestelsel bij elkaar – is bedekt met een dik wolkendek. Bovendien woeden er op de planeet krachtige orkanen. Die orkanen worden – net als de krachtige straalstromen op de planeet – al een tijdje waargenomen. Onduidelijk was echter altijd tot hoe diep deze reikten.
3000 kilometer diep Dankzij Juno is daar nu meer duidelijkheid over gekomen. De ruimtesonde cirkelt sinds 2016 rond Jupiter en is gemaakt om te onthullen wat zich onder Jupiters dikke wolkendek bevindt. En door de sonde verzamelde gegevens wijzen nu uit dat de orkanen en straalstromen die we in de atmosfeer zien, heel diep reiken: tot wel 3000 kilometer.
Een vloeibaar binnenste dat zich vreemd gedraagt En daaronder bevindt zich dan het binnenste van Jupiter dat voornamelijk uit waterstof en helium bestaat. Dat binnenste is vloeibaar, maar gedraagt zich als een vast object, zo stellen de onderzoekers, waarbij de differentiële rotatie (het verschijnsel dat gas sneller roteert aan de polen dan aan de evenaar) sterk afneemt in vergelijking met de atmosfeer. “Onder die buitenste dynamische ‘huid’ die slechts 1 procent van de massa van Jupiter uitmaakt, bevindt zich de binnenste 99 procent van Jupiters massa en die roteert soepel en gestaag,” stelt professor Andrew Prentice (hij was niet betrokken bij het onderzoek).
Deze prachtige foto maakte Juno tijdens zijn tiende scheervlucht langs Jupiter.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin M. Gill.
Stormen op de polen En ook op de polen gebeurt iets vreemds, zo schrijven onderzoekers. Op de noordpool zijn acht cyclonen te vinden die rond één cycloon cirkelen, terwijl op de zuidpool een cycloon te vinden is die omringd wordt door vijf cyclonen. Hoe deze stormen zijn ontstaan en waarom ze niet fuseren, is in dit stadium onduidelijk. “Ook lijkt het erop dat ze stilstaan, terwijl je zou verwachten dat ze langzaam roteren,” aldus Alan Duffy, verbonden aan de Swinburne University of Technology en eveneens niet betrokken bij het onderzoek. “Deze razende stormen zijn net zo mooi als ze mysterieus zijn.”
Belangrijk In totaal publiceren onderzoekers vandaag vier onderzoekspapers in het blad Nature waarin ze onder meer bovenstaande bevindingen uit de doeken doen. Met de publicaties hebben astronomen weer een flinke stap in de juiste richting gezet, stelt Yamila Miguel, sinds kort verbonden aan de Sterrewacht Leiden en betrokken bij drie van de vier papers. “Deze nieuwe kennis is cruciaal voor ons begrip van het inwendige van de planeet, van zijn samenstelling en van de verdeling van materiaal in het binnenste.”
Jupiter is om meerdere redenen een bijzonder interessante planeet. Zo is het de invloedrijkste planeet in ons zonnestelsel en heeft deze nog steeds zijn originele samenstelling. Door de planeet te bestuderen, kunnen we dan ook meer te weten komen over de beginjaren en evolutie van ons zonnestelsel. Daarnaast kan meer informatie over de planeet zelf wellicht ook weer nieuw licht werpen op de manen die deze rijk is, waaronder Europa, één van de betere kandidaten voor buitenaards leven in ons eigen zonnestelsel.
Aliens moeten mogelijk nog ietsje langer op hun ontdekking wachten
Aliens moeten mogelijk nog ietsje langer op hun ontdekking wachten
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Onze beste troef in de zoektocht naar buitenaards leven – de James Webb-telescoop – loopt waarschijnlijk opnieuw vertraging op.
De lancering van de krachtigste ruimtetelescoop die de mensheid ooit heeft gebouwd, is al herhaaldelijk uitgesteld. Zo was het een jaar geleden nog de bedoeling dat de telescoop in oktober 2018 het luchtruim zou kiezen. Maar vorig jaar werd duidelijk dat dat niet ging lukken. NASA kondigde aan nu in te zetten op een lancering in de eerste helft van 2019.
Gaat niet lukken Maar ook dat is te hoog gegrepen, waarschuwt het Amerikaanse Government Accountability Office in een uitgebreid rapport. “Afgaand op de hoeveelheid werk die NASA nog moet verzetten voor JWST (James Webb Space Telescope, red.) klaar is voor lancering, stellen wij dat het waarschijnlijk is dat de lanceerdatum opnieuw vooruit geschoven wordt.”
Problemen Dat de lancering vorig jaar werd uitgesteld naar 2019 kwam voornamelijk doordat het meer tijd kostte dan gepland om de verschillende onderdelen van de telescoop te integreren. Op dit moment is men nog volop bezig met die integratie en daarna moet het complete – complexe – systeem nog getest worden. Het is – zo benadrukt GAO – meestal in deze fase dat ruimtemissies vertraging oplopen, doordat zich problemen voordoen. En daarom verwacht de organisatie ook niet dat NASA voor juni 2019 kan lanceren.
Duurder Het betekent dat de kosten van de missie ook verder op zullen lopen, aldus het GAO. En de kans bestaat zelfs dat de bouw van de telescoop uiteindelijk meer gaat kosten dan de 8 miljard dollar die NASA er bij gratie van het Amerikaanse Congres maximaal aan mocht uitgeven. We hoeven niet bang te zijn dat de complete missie door dat uit de hand gelopen huishoudboekje (ooit dacht men de telescoop nog voor een paar miljard dollar te kunnen bouwen) wordt geschrapt. Daarvoor is al veel te veel geld en tijd in de missie gestopt. Wel kan de hele toestand rond James Webb de Amerikaanse overheid wat huiverig maken voor de bouw van de volgende generatie supertelescopen, zoals WFIRST die de Trump-regering nu al graag van de tekentafel ziet verdwijnen.
Natuurlijk zijn er meerdere manieren om buitenaards leven op te sporen. Je kunt bijvoorbeeld zoeken naar van aliens afkomstige radiosignalen of zelf berichten versturen in de hoop dat aliens ze opvangen. De meeste astronomen zien echter veel meer in de wat gerichtere aanpak van James Webb en daarmee is het misschien wel onze beste troef in de zoektocht naar buitenaards leven. Dat we mogelijk nog langer moeten wachten tot we die troef in kunnen zetten, is zuur. Maar als James Webb alle beloftes waarmaakt, is het het wachten waard.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Hubble maakt prachtige foto van twee botsende sterrenstelsels
Hubble maakt prachtige foto van twee botsende sterrenstelsels
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Deze botsing – op een slordige 350 miljoen lichtjaar afstand – is nog maar net begonnen.
De prachtige foto laat twee balkspiraalstelsels zien die al aardig vervormd zijn. En dat terwijl de échte botsing nog moet beginnen. Want op de foto is goed te zien dat de kernen van de twee sterrenstelsels nog ver van elkaar verwijderd zijn. En toch beginnen de sterrenstelsels elkaar met hun zwaartekracht al aan te tasten.
Jonge sterren Dat zie je niet alleen aan de vreemde vorm van de sterrenstelsels, maar ook aan het feit dat beide sterrenstelsels druk bezig zijn met het produceren van jonge sterren. Die stervormingsgebieden hebben op de foto helderblauwe kleuren en profiteren van de botsing doordat interstellair gas en stof (waaruit sterren voortkomen) flink wordt opgeschud.
Foto: ESA / Hubble, NASA.
Fusie Deze twee sterrenstelsels – Arp 256 genoemd – houden elkaar waarschijnlijk nog miljoenen jaren bezig. In die periode zullen ze langzaam maar zeker naar elkaar toe kruipen om vervolgens te fuseren tot één groot sterrenstelsel.
Wie aan sterrenstelsels denkt, denkt vaak aan grote, machtige schijnbaar onverstoorbare structuren in de ruimte. Maar zelfs sterrenstelsels kunnen van hun à propos worden gebracht. En dat leidt tot vuurwerk in de ruimte! Meer weten over botsende sterrenstelsels en de prachtige foto’s die dat in het verleden heeft opgeleverd? Werp dan eens een blik op het artikel dat we hier eerder over publiceerden!
Bronmateriaal:
"Crash in progress" - Spacetelescope Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel:
Drie superaardes ontdekt op zo'n 100 lichtjaar van de aarde
Drie superaardes ontdekt op zo'n 100 lichtjaar van de aarde
Caroline Kraaijvanger
De planeten zijn zeer geschikt voor vervolgonderzoek naar onder meer de samenstelling van hun atmosfeer.
Wetenschappers ontdekten de drie superaardes in gegevens die ruimtetelescoop Kepler heeft verzameld. De telescoop is gemaakt om planeten buiten ons zonnestelsel op te sporen en doet dat door langdurig naar sterren te turen, in de hoop de helderheid van sterren regelmatig af te zien nemen. Dergelijke ‘dipjes’ in de helderheid van een ster kunnen wijzen op de aanwezigheid van een planeet die regelmatig voor de ster langsbeweegt.
GJ9827 Zo ontdekte Kepler ook dat er rond de ster GJ9827 meerdere planeten cirkelen. Het gaat om drie superaardes, zo schrijven onderzoekers in dit paper. De planeten hebben een straal die 1,6, 1,3 en 2,1 keer groter is dan de straal van de aarde en hun massa zit tussen die van de aarde en Neptunus in. De superaardes staan heel dicht bij hun ster: ze doen er respectievelijk slechts 1,2, 3,6 en 6,2 dagen over om een rondje rond hun ster te voltooien. Het betekent dat de planeten vrij heet zijn: de temperaturen op het oppervlak lopen naar schatting uiteen van 407 tot 899 graden Celsius.
Atmosfeer Het is een vrij unieke ontdekking, zo benadrukken de onderzoekers. Doordat de planeten relatief dicht bij de aarde staan (GJ9827 is slechts 100 lichtjaar van ons verwijderd), hun moederster zeer helder is en de drie planeten ook nog eens duidelijk voor hun ster langsbewegen, kunnen we in de nabije toekomst gedetailleerd onderzoek gaan doen naar de samenstelling van hun atmosferen (dat doen astronomen door het licht van de moederster dat door deze atmosferen heen sijpelt te analyseren).
Ook de straal van deze planeten maakt de ontdekking bijzonder. Zoals gezegd hebben de planeten een straal van 1,6, 1,3 en 2,1 keer de straal van de aarde. Over het algemeen geldt dat planeten met een straal kleiner dan 1,6 keer de straal van de aarde rotsachtig zijn, terwijl planeten met een straal groter dan 1,6 keer de straal van de aarde gasreuzen zijn. Onduidelijk is nog waarom het kantelpunt rond die 1,6 keer de straal van de aarde ligt. Maar hier hebben we een planetair systeem dat uit drie planeten bestaat die precies rond – en eentje zelfs precies op – dat kantelpunt zitten. Een ideale gelegenheid om te achterhalen hoe de samenstelling en structuur van een planeet afhankelijk van de straal verandert.
With the revolutionary steps made in space exploration, and a whole universe to explore, many questions relating to far off solar systems and galaxies arise; Are any planets other than our own habitable? How many of them have atmospheres? The more our technology advances, the deeper we can see into space, the more our curiosity arises. But one question that has always captured a lot of public interest is whether there is extraterrestrial life. There is a burning desire to know: are we alone?
Scientists keep a look out for ‘biomarkers’ when searching for alien life. Biomarkers are the characteristics of the Earth’s atmosphere that, when present on other planets, indicate the possibility of life. These include the presence of molecular oxygen, water, carbon dioxide and methane. While we don’t know that other planets would display all these signs, it again acts as a good starting place, and a logical indicator of possible life.
The problem faced when attempting to detect biomarkers on distant exoplanets is due to their relative proximity to their star in comparison to Earth. This means the light we observe from these planets is often masked completely by the radiation emitted from the star they are orbiting, making analysis of their light far more complex. Even when a planet is directly observable, an extremely high resolution telescope is required to distinguish between the light from the planet and the light from the star. To a lesser extent, radiation from other distant objects can also make it harder to distinguish what radiation is attributed to the planet, even our own atmosphere can result in interference that can confuse results.
A telescope's resolution is directly related to its size, meaning ground based telescopes are limited by the distance of the atmosphere[2]. Technological progress has allowed for images from ground based telescopes to be improved after capture, but this is still not enough to produce images of exoplanets that we can always draw information from. Space based telescopes require far more funding and, given the challenging environment, are far harder to implement.
Without progress in telescopic imaging, it is not always easy to detect these biomarkers, and consequentially we face a barrier in the search for life. Learn more about The Search for another Earth.
Illustration of the evolution of detecting the early universe, from ground-based space telescopes to the Hubble space telescope and the future James Webb space telescope. Image credit: Public domain
Mysterious Methane
Methane has been detected in the martian atmosphere both by Earth-based telescopes, and by the European Mars Express mission[4]. The lack of a magnetic field around Mars means that this methane can be easily destroyed by cosmic radiation. Therefore the fact that its abundance seems to remain fairly constant implies methane production on Mars.
Methane is usually associated with organic processes (as the output of processes involving life), however there are other means by which it can be produced. These include geochemical mechanisms such as a process known as serpentinisation, as well as the recently demonstrated release of methane from meteorites bombarded with UV radiation under Mars-like conditions.
More data are needed from the regions of the martian surface where this methane has been detected to begin to determine it's source, however the issue is clouded by the fact that these processes are not mutually exclusive, and so even if we can identify one of these occurring, it does not rule out the possibility of methane being produced simultaneously by an alternative process.
Is there life on Mars? Probably not, though if there's water at the poles and possibly underground, it remains a possibility. If there is, it's certainly in the form of microbes rather than anything more advanced.
Perhaps a better question though, is was there ever life on Mars? Since we now believe there was once liquid water on the surface, this is a very strong possibility, but we have no evidence of it yet. This question is a driving force behind several Mars missions from Curiosity (NASA) to ExoMars (ESA).
Artist's impression of the Curiosity landing on Mars. Image credit: Public domain
Just as it has on Mars, methane has been detected in the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan[5]. These observations have been confirmed both by Earth-based telescopes, and by the Cassini mission, which has also spotted shallow lakes of methane around the moons tropics. Calculations suggest that this methane ought to have been broken up by cosmic radiation within 50 million years or so (a very short time when compared to the age of the Solar System itself). Therefore it's present abundance seems to indicate that the methane in the atmosphere is being replenished from a source on Titan itself. Methane is usually associated with organic processes (as the output of processes involving life), however there are other potential sources. These include Cryovolcanoes (volcanic type features which release water and other gas/liquids with low melting points, on colder worlds than our own). Titan has a thicker atmosphere than Earth, layers of which are almost entirely opaque to visible light. As a result, we have no good images of the Titanian surface, and are thus unable to say for sure what the source of the methane on Titan is.
Detecting Habitable Planets
Each solar system has a theoretical zone where the atmospheric pressure and temperature of the planets within is sufficient to allow for surface water to be present. These are known as Circumstellar Habitable Zones or, more colloquially, Goldilocks zones. This is used as an indicator for possible alien life, as for life as we know it to exist, water is a necessity.
A planet is determined to be within or outside of the zone depending on its orbit, its mass and the amount of power radiated by the star it’s orbiting. Being within the Habitable Zone does not guarantee the presence of water, just defines whether the conditions are suitable. There are also other factors necessary for an ‘Earth like’ planet such as atmosphere, which this does not consider. However it does rule out celestial bodies with water being found outside a habitable zone, hence acting as a good starting point for the search for alien life.
Since the concept was presented, many stars have been found to have a planet within their habitable zone, in fact some have been observed with multiple planets within the zone. This again seems to support the idea that other ‘Earth like’ planets exist.
Doubts have been raised, however, about the validity of these habitable zones, as surface water is thought to have been detected on celestial bodies outside a zone, most commonly via absorption spectroscopy - a method of analysing the light from a body to determine its composition. The water present on these planets can be maintained by processes such as tidal heating and radioactive decay, or pressurized by other means. It is also thought to be possible for water to be present on rogue planets or their moons[1].
So while these zones may be a good place to start the search for extraterrestrial life, maybe we should not limit ourselves to searching solely within their scope. Learn more about Are Exoplanets Habitable?.
A representation of habitable zones around stars. Image credit: TWDK
Scientists have been discovering planets outside of our own solar system since 1988, and the rate at which these have been found has increased dramatically in recent years, with over ten times as many being found in the second decade of discovery than the first. The nature of these planets is varied and the possibility of any of them supporting life depends upon a myriad factors.
Not all stars have the exact same elemental make-up however, containing different quantities of heavier elements (other than Hydrogen and Helium). The different composition of these stars directly affects the rate at which they burn, and so the lifetime of the star. This will affect the position, and lifetime, of the region around the star in which liquid water could exist. The composition of these stars may also affect the nature of the atmosphere and geological evolution of the planets which form around them, and thus how suitable these may be for life to arise on.
We cannot always measure the complete composition of these stars because some elements are present in quantities too small to be detected by traditional spectroscopic techniques. As for the composition of the planets themselves, we do not know enough about planetary formation to understand exactly how these may be affected yet.
An additional problem to finding evidence of life outside of our solar system is the ability to find the planets (or moons) hosting that life. Although this is difficult, it is not entirely impossible - although so far, only extremely large planets far bigger than Jupiter have been directly imaged. Learn more about Detection and Discovery of Exoplanets.
This image of the young star 1RXS J160929.1−210524 shows a massive planet orbiting at great distance (circled). It was taken in 2008 by astronomers using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. Image credit: Gemini Observatory
Is All Life Dependent on Water?
For life as we know it to be viable, water is a necessity. Humans are composed of 60% water and cannot survive without it for more than a few days. This is not to say this is the same for all species on Earth, the level of dependency does vary, however every known organism requires water to live.
So far this article has has explored how scientists try and identify planets they deem capable of supporting life, and the presence of water has been the recurring theme. Now this is an obvious first step, and a logical progression - all life on Earth relies on water, therefore when on the hunt for alien life, we start our search on planets that also have water. However, This does not necessarily mean that life is dependent on water universally. We just don’t know how life might have developed elsewhere. It is possible that other life forms may have evolved with alternative biochemistries, reliant on other elements all together. Scientists are fairly certain that some form of liquid is necessary to life, but again this cannot be ascertained.
So, while beginning our search within the realms of habitable zones or more generally on planets that reveal a presence of surface water, we should by no means rule out the possibility of finding life on a planet completely unlike Earth.
A further puzzle we are yet to answer, is how does life begin on Earth or other planets? While speculations have been made about how life begins, we are yet to find an overruling theory.
Life in the Universe - The Fermi Paradox
The Fermi Paradox states that there is a contradiction between the estimates of probability of civilized alien life, and the lack of supporting evidence. To understand why scientists think there is such a high probability of alien life we must get an idea of scale.
The observable universe is the universe that can, in principle, be viewed from Earth at this point in time. For anything further away, there will not have been time due to the expansion of space (since the Big Bang) for the light to have reached Earth. It spans over 93 billion light years, giving us an estimate of at least 100 billion galaxies within observable range from Earth.
Given that there are billions of stars that are older than our own sun, with orbiting planets far older than our Earth, and assuming that our Earth is by no means extraordinary, we reach the conclusion that it is very likely there will be other Earth-like planets in the observable universe. These ‘Earth-like’ exoplanets would have been capable of supporting life for much longer than our own Earth however, so the evolution of their life forms and their possible civilizations could be leaps and bounds ahead of our own.
Extrapolating our own species' progress in space travel and exploration, we could colonise a galaxy in tens of millions of years, so if these planets are billions of years older, it follows that they could be far further along in the field of space exploration than us, and could quite possibly be fully aware of our existence. And yet we have no evidence for their existence. It is possible that intelligent life arises frequently in the universe, but invariably faces extinction before contact can be made.
The organisation SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Life) attempts to explore the origins of life in the universe, the nature of such life, and how widespread alien life is (if at all). Given our interest in what’s out there, many people have attempted to come up with explanations for this paradox, but none have supporting evidence and so the question still stands unanswered.
Artist's logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe with the Solar System at the centre all the way to Big Bang's invisible plasma on the edge. Image credit: Unmismoobjetivo
The Origin of Life
How life began on Earth is still a much debated topic. It is generally accepted that life began in water, but this contradicts with what we know about the necessary building blocks for life; one of the crucial ingredients for life, RNA, is unstable in water, unless the water has a high enough boron content. Boron is necessary for life because it stabilizes ribose, the “R” out of RNA’s three components. However it is believed that when life began on Earth there was hardly any boron in the water. So this leaves us asking, how did life begin?
One hypothesis, Panspermia, considers the possibility that life in fact began outside of our Earth. The most likely scenario for this hypothesis involves life originating on Mars. It is thought that boron was far more plentiful on Mars and this is supported by the fact that boron was found on a martian meteorite[3]. While this may seem far fetched, the idea that basic martian life could have travelled over on an asteroid and evolved on Earth at least answers RNA’s ‘water problem’. So are we in fact the long lost descendants of martians or is there something we’re missing? Learn more about origin of life.
Maybe we are yet to come across alien life, because Earth is fundamentally unique. However, with probability in our favour, it’s likely we will stumble across alien life eventually. The next question will be, do we want to?
This article was written by the Things We Don’t Know editorial team, with contributions from Andrew Rushby, Ed Trollope, Jon Cheyne, and Holly Godwin.
This article was first published on 2017-11-26 and was last updated on 2017-11-26.
[1] Abbot, D,S., Switzer, E,R., (2011) THE STEPPENWOLF: A PROPOSAL FOR A HABITABLE PLANET IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE The Astrophysical Journal 735(2):L27- DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/735/2/L27
[2] Kawahara, H., et al., (2012) CAN GROUND-BASED TELESCOPES DETECT THE OXYGEN 1.27 μm ABSORPTION FEATURE AS A BIOMARKER IN EXOPLANETS? The Astrophysical Journal 758(1):13- DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/758/1/13
[3] Grossman, L., Webb, R., (2013) Martian chemistry was friendlier to life New Scientist 219(2933):14 DOI: 10.1016/S0262-4079(13)62173-9
[4] Formisano, V., (2004) Detection of Methane in the Atmosphere of Mars Science 306(5702):1758-1761 DOI: 10.1126/science.1101732
What is the STARGATE project? Well, it was a joint effort by the CIA and NSA, along with SRI and a few other academic institutions around the world to study parapsychology (telepathy, , remote viewing, etc). The program lasted more than two decades, and was funded by millions of dollars. You would think that a black budget special access program that ran for more than two decades had some success, and it did. The STARGATE program was used in multiple missions for ‘national security’ and ‘intelligence collection’ purposes, and the United States wasn’t the only country interested in this type of phenomena. For example, here is a document going into detail about certain people (studies by the Department of Defence) with ‘paranormal’ abilities. Here is a cancelled TED talk by Russel Targ, a physicist and co-founder of the STARGATE program sharing everything he knows about ESP.
Here is another example from Russia, of a women who was in the hands of their military for a while.
A CIA document titled “Chronology of Recent Interest in Exceptional Functions of The Human Body in the People’s Republic of China” is another great example of their interest. In the document, it outlines the Chinese government’s interest in parapsychology (remote viewing, telepathy, psychokinesis, etc.) just as the ones above do.
In 1976, a presentation was given at the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) on a paper published by the Institute on behalf of Hal Puthoff (now part of the To The Stars initiative who received and released the recent UFO Pentagon footage from the US government) and Russell Targ.
Both of them titled the paper “A Perceptual Channel For Information Transfer Over Kilometer Distances: Historical Perspectives and Recent Research.” Remote viewing, which was a large part of the program, had an 85 percent success rate, and it could be taught to other people as well. Remote viewing is the ability to describe a remote geographical location, in detail, from a distant location. It’s as if these people were trained and had the ability to project their consciousness into other areas in which they were not physically located, or at least, somehow, perceive those areas.
Remote viewing also seemed to show that ‘time’ as we know it isn’t what we think it is, as it was also used to peer into the past as well as into the future, with successful ‘hits.’
The dialogue below about Mars is an example of that.
Paul H. Smith, PhD, one of the participants in the Stargate project (now a retired U.S. army major), gives us details from his book, The Essential Guide To Remote Viewing.
He also describes in his book how remote viewing, in multiple occasions, was successfully used to predict future events, and shares his own successful experience of successfully perceiving future events with great accuracy.
One of the participants in the program, Ingo Swann, was able to successfully describe and view a ring around Jupiter, which scientists had no idea even existed. This took place precisely before NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft fly of the planet. You can read more about that here. (source)
“To summarize, over the years, the back-and-forth criticism of protocols, refinement of methods, and successful replication of this type of remote viewing in independent laboratories has yielded considerable scientific evidence for the reality of the [remote viewing] phenomenon. Adding to the strength of these results was the discovery that a growing number of individuals could be found to demonstrate high-quality remote viewing, often to their own surprise. . . . The development of this capability at SRI has evolved to the point where visiting CIA personnel with no previous exposure to such concepts have performed well under controlled laboratory conditions.” (source)
The point is, remote viewing, and other similar phenomena is real, and can no longer be debunked. It’s been validated a number of times. In 1999, statistics professor Jessica Utts at UC Irvine, published a paper showing that parapsychological experiments have produced much stronger results than those showing a daily dose of aspirin helping to prevent heart attacks. Utts also showed that these results are much stronger than the research behind various drugs like antiplatelets, for example.
Even as far back as 1985, a report prepared by the Army Research Institute disclosed that “the data reviewed in this report constitute genuine scientific anomalies for which no one has an adequate explanation for.”
Just because it can’t be explained does not mean it’s not real.
“The statistical results of the studies examined are far beyond what is expected by chance. Arguments that these results could be due to methodological flaws in the experiments are soundly refuted. Effects of similar magnitude to those found in government-sponsored research at SRI and SAIC have been replicated at a number of laboratories across the world. Such consistency cannot be readily explained by claims of flaws or fraud.”
So, What About Mars?
It’s safe to assume that not all which was discovered was declassified. Personally, I believe that declassifying a controversial topic is possibly a tool used by the intelligence community to prolong secrecy. I could be wrong, but it seems that when something is declassified, like the STARGATE program, the general population automatically assumes that that’s all there is/was to it, and there is nothing new left to discover. I don’t believe that’s true, and it (declassifying information) might be away to stop public inquiry into controversial and secretive subjects.
That being said, we recently came across some interesting documents regarding Mars via the Stargate files. As mentioned above, remote viewing was not limited to distance. The viewer could be trying to determine what’s in the next room, or the contents of an envelope they were given, or they could be tasked to remote view, not only another countries defence installations, but planets like Jupiter, as mentioned above, the moon, and now we know that the same thing happened on Mars.
See below:
The CIA was using a remote viewer to look at the planet Mars, not as it is presently, but to peer into the past. Below is an example of how one of these remote viewing sessions went. What’s interesting about the dialogue below is that the viewer mentions a great climate shift.
What else did the viewer see? He saw signs of life, now keep in mind that this is before the big climate change, and it’s interesting because he describes them as tall thin humanoids wearing some sort of suit.
The defence employee is constantly asking the viewer to shift coordinates.
After this, if you continue to read the document, the viewer describes large pyramid structures, and much more.
All of this is very interesting, especially when you consider that the remote viewing program had such a high success rate.
What’s so significant about the document above is that there is corroborating information. As you saw, the remote viewer in this case was tasked with remote viewing the Mars, but, again, did so in a time period approximately 1 million years BC.
It’s interesting to note how the remote viewer was ‘brought back.’
It wasn’t long ago when renowned scientist Dr. John Brandenburg, who worked for the Government with top-secret security clearances on various projects shared some very sensitive information. He has worked on the Rocket Plume Regolith Interactions on the moon and Mars, Vortex theory of Rocket engine design and the combined Sakharov-Kaluza-Klein theory of Field Unification for purposes of space propulsion and Mars science. Brandenburg was also the Deputy Manager of the Clementine Mission to the moon, which was part of a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defence Organization (BMDO) and NASA. The mission discovered water at the moon’s poles in 1994. (Source: page 16 of 18)(source)(source)
Clearly, he knows his stuff. There are hundreds of similar types of people with impressive and verifiable backgrounds relaying some very interesting information to the public.
Whether it’s true or not is up for you to decide.
He stated that the Clementine mission to the moon was actually a photo reconnaissance mission to check out strange structures on the back side of the moon, that were built by somebody else, not our civilization. He did so in the documentary ‘Aliens on the moon.’
Brandenburg has also done extensive research on Mars, having found strong evidence of a past civilization existing millions of years ago before the massive climatic shift. According to him, there was a large nuclear blast that could have caused the climate shift which took place on Mars, and prior to this blast, Mars had a bronze aged civilization, with pyramids and other giant structures, like the face on Mars (pictures above) and aztec looking like head.
Here is a great lecture from Brandenburg where he goes into great detail and provides the evidence.
There are a number of respected scientists in the field who have been trying to tell people that the face on Mars is not just some geological coincidence, but an actual face.
The latest example of research to contemplate this, comes from a fairly new study that was published in the Journal of Space Exploration titled “The Mounds of Cydonia: Elegant Geology, or Tetrahedral Geometry and Reactions of Pythagoras and Dirac?” A study that’s added to the already robust evidence pointing to “artificial surface interventions” on Mars, as the study states.
General Albert Stubblebine, a retired United States Major General, was the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), and one of America’s most distinguished soldiers. He was also chief of U.S. Army Intelligence, with 16,000 soldiers under his command.
He was a major proponent of “psychic” warfare and a key player in the Stargate Project.
Here’s what General Stubblebine had to say about Mars:
“There are structures on the surface of Mars. I will tell you for the record that there are structures underneath the surface of Mars that cannot be seen by the Voyager cameras that went by in 1976. I will also tell you that there are machines on the surface of Mars and there are machines under the surface of Mars that you can look at, you can find out in detail, you cansee what they are, where they are, who they are and a lot of detail about them.”
Below is a lecture from from the remote viewer mentioned in the CIA documents above. His name is Joe McMoneagle, and in the lecture he goes into detail about the session.
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FORMER CIA CONTRACTOR CLAIMS ALIENS ARE USING OUR PLANET “LIKE A SUPERMARKET
FORMER CIA CONTRACTOR CLAIMS ALIENS ARE USING OUR PLANET “LIKE A SUPERMARKET
A FORMER CIA EMPLOYEE REVEALS THE REASON WHY SOME ALIENS KEEP VISITING OUR PLANET.
The deepest echelons of the U.S. Government run a number of very dark ventures collectively known as Secret Access Programs. In 1997, the U.S. senate released a report describing the SAPs as being “so sensitive that they are exempt from standard reporting requirements to the Congress.”
One of these infamous SAPs was focused on people endowed with “special abilities,” the CIA’s remote viewing program:
“In July 1995 the CIA declassified, and approved for release, documents revealing its sponsorship in the 1970s of a program at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, to determine whether such phenomena as remote viewing “might have any utility for intelligence collection“. Thus began disclosure to the public of a two-decade-plus involvement of the intelligence community in the investigation of so-called parapsychological or psi phenomena.” (source)
One of the participants in this Secret Access Program was Ingo Swann and his story is one that will really make you consider what is publicly dismissed as wishful thinking.
Using his unexplained power, Ingo Swann was able to see and describe the thin ring around Jupiter before astronomers had a chance to detect it. The following year NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft executed a fly-by around Jupiter and photographs it sent back confirmed the existence of the wispy ring.
Drawing on this success, the CIA went further with his training and the remote viewing program was considered worth investing into. As far as the declassified files tell, the program continued for another two and a half decades, a period during which the U.S. military was the primary beneficiary of intelligence acquired through multiple participants.
The reason behind the program’s termination is still unclear and there is an ongoing debate regarding the amount of information that was indeed declassified.
One of the most notable incidents involving this particular SAP was retold by one of the programs’ biggest supporter, U.S. Major general Albert Stubblebine. According to his admission, the remote viewers discovered structures on Mars –both on the planet’s surface and underneath its seemingly deserted facade– that did not appear to have been built by humans.
The story of Ingo Swann cannot be found amid the declassified dossiers. Although he did take part in the program, the particularities of his involvement came from a book he later published —Penetration. The book explores the subject of aliens and UFOs (both man-made and extraterrestrial) and is one of the strangest reads out there.
On one particular occasion, Swann describes an incident involving a secret agent going by the moniker Mr. Axelrod.
Swann met Axelrod while he was working with scientists at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA. One day, despite the strict policy of no outsiders allowed, Mr. A managed to enter the Institute and convince Swann to accompany him on a state-sanctioned mission.
Axelrod was in the good company of “two blond haired, blue eyed, military looking assistants” who were unusually tall and exuded an air of mystery. The group boarded a nondescript, unmarked Learjet and flew to the west coast; Swann’s best guess was that they landed somewhere in the Alaskan hinterland.
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Por-Bajin: Who Built This Summer Palace In Siberia And Why?
Por-Bajin: Who Built This Summer Palace In Siberia And Why?
There are a lot of theories over mysterious 1,300-year-old fortress-like structure located on island in middle of lake.
With its island location and towering square walls that were once impenetrable, it looks at first glance to be an ancient fortress or kremlin to keep out enemies. Others believe the 1,300-year-old structure in rural Siberia has more mystical properties and might have been a summer palace, monastery, or even an astronomical observatory.
Whatever it is, more than a century after it was first explored, archaeologists are no further forward in discovering the secrets of Por-Bajin, who built it or why.
Most likely constructed in 757 AD, the complex has fascinated and frustrated experts in equal measure since it was located in the middle Tere-Khol, a high-altitude lake in Tuva, in the late 19th century.
1,300-year-old structure could be a fortress, summer palace, monastery, or even an astronomical observatory.
First explored in 1891, with small-scale excavation work later carried out between 1957 and 1963, it was not until 2007 that proper research took place at the site.
Archaeologists found clay tablets of human feet, faded coloured drawings on the plaster of the walls, giant gates and fragments of burnt wood. But nothing yet has provided a definitive answer as to why the structure was built, and excavation work continues.
‘Por-Bajin is legally treated as one of the most mysterious archaeological monuments of Russia,’ says the official website for the complex, about 3,800km from Moscow.
Construction materials, and the way the site is laid out, told the experts it was built in a typically Chinese architectural tradition, most likely in the second half of the eight century.
More than a century after it was first explored, archaeologists are no further forward in discovering the secrets of Por-Bajin, who built it or why.
‘Apparently it was built at the period of the Uighur Khagante nomadic empire (744-840 AD), but it’s not clear what they built a fortress for in such a solitary place, far from big settlements and trade routes. ‘The architecture also produces many questions and it has reminders of a model of an ideal Chinese city-palace.’
Por-Bajin, which translates as ‘clay house’ in the Tuvan language, is located in the very centre of Eurasia, on the borders of Russia and Mongolia. It sits on a small island in a lake high in the mountains between the Sayan and Altai ranges, about five miles west of the isolated Kungurtuk settlement in southern Siberia.
What puzzles the experts, however, is the lack of rudimentary heating systems, particularly given that Por-Bajin sits at 2,300metres above sea level and endures harsh Siberian weather.
Laser mapping of the site prior to the first major excavation in 2007 helped experts build a 3D model of what the community might have looked like. Despite its age, parts of the structure were well preserved when archaeologists arrived to examine the 3.5 hectare site, with walls clearly visible.
Outer walls standing 10 metres tall and 12 metres wide formed a rectangular shape, creating what many have interpreted as a protective kremlin-like fortress. A main gate was discovered, opening into two successive courtyards connected by another gate.
Walls on the inside were smaller, at about one metre-tall, forming the outline of buildings, with a large building in the centre of the site. Some of the walls and panels were covered with lime plaster painted with horizontal red striped.
The main complex in the inner courtyard had a two-part central structure, one behind the other linked by a covered walkway. It had a tiled roof and was supported by 36 wooden columns resting on stone bases.
Construction materials, and the way the site is laid out, told the experts it was built in a typically Chinese architectural tradition, most likely in the second half of the eight century.
Outer walls standing 10 metres tall and 12 metres wide formed a rectangular shape, creating what many have interpreted as a protective kremlin-like fortress. Photo: 'Por-Bajin Fortress' foundation
There is growing evidence it was a community or palace complex centred around a Buddhist monastery. Photo:'Por-Bajin Fortress' foundation
'I have been to many places, I have seen many things, but I have never seen anything of the kind,' said Vladimir Putin
‘The building was most likely of the post-and-beam construction characteristic of Chinese architecture from the T’ang Dynasty,’ wrote head archaeologist Irina Arzhantseva in a report published in The European Archaeologist in 2011.
‘Finds of burnt timber fragments point to the use of the typical Chinese technique of interlocking wooden brackets, called dou-gung. Ramps led down to the two flanking galleries which were roofed, open spaces looking onto the access to the main pavilion.’
While debate continues about the use of Por-Bajin, there is growing evidence it was a community or palace complex centred around a Buddhist monastery. Certainly, there is an argument that its layout is typical of the palaces of the Buddhist Paradises as depicted in T’ang paintings.
Books from the era also describe the existence of Uighur towns, extensive building activities, and a transition from a nomadic to sedentary lifestyle. Indeed, there may have been as many of 15 of these settlements in Tuva alone, all square of rectangular shaped and enclosed by walls with a main gate.
What puzzles the experts, however, is the lack of rudimentary heating systems, particularly given that Por-Bajin sits at 2,300metres above sea level and endures harsh Siberian weather.
The building was most likely of the post-and-beam construction characteristic of Chinese architecture from the T’ang Dynasty.' Pictures: Irina Arzhantseva, 'Por-Bajin Fortress' foundation
If anything it suggests that the complex was only ever occupied for a brief period of time, or was used as a seasonal home in the warmer summer months. Some experts even say that the climate, or other natural occurrences in the region, brought occupation of the site to an early end in the 9th century.
Por-Bajin sits on a bed of permafrost with evidence that the melting of this ice – as a result of warmer temperatures over the past century – has caused not only a destruction of the walls, but a dramatic rise in the depth of the lake water.
In the 2011 research paper, Irina Arzhantseva wrote: ‘This situation created a two-fold threat to the long-term survival of the site. Thermokarst (melting of the permafrost) seems to undermine the stability of the structures on the site, leading to collapse and decay; and frost fissures are causing constant erosion of the banks of the island to such an extent that it is estimated that the walls will start collapsing into the lake in about 80 years.
‘Archaeological and geomorphological fieldwork revealed traces of at least two earthquakes which had accelerated the natural process of deterioration. The first of these seems to have happened already during the construction of the ‘fortress’ in the 8th century.
‘It is not yet quite clear how long the buildings survived after the abandonment of the site in the 9th century, but some time after the abandonment there was another catastrophic earthquake which led to fires and to the collapse of the southern and eastern enclosure walls, and destroyed the north-western corner bastion.’
While debate on its origins will no doubt continue for decades, those who have seen Por-Bajin are all in agreement about its beauty. In fact, in many ways Russian president Vladimir Putin sums it up perfectly.
‘I have been to many places, I have seen many things, but I have never seen anything of the kind,’ he said, following a visit to the complex with Prince Albert of Monaco in 2007. Few could argue with that.
Who Crafted The 2.8 Billion-Year-Old Klerksdorp Spheres?
Who Crafted The 2.8 Billion-Year-Old Klerksdorp Spheres?
2.8 Billion-Year-Old Spheres balanced within one-hundred thousandths of an inch from absolute perfection have created confusion among experts.
They vary in size from 30 – 50 mm in diameter and have perfectly concentric grooves around the center as if they were molded. Inside the hard “shell” some have a spongy substance, while in others it resembles charcoal.
Man-Made Artifacts, or the result of mother nature?
Called the Klerksdorp spheres, the enigmatic artifacts are considered by many authors as the ultimate evidence of pre-human civilizations existing on Earth billions of years ago.
However, given their controversial age, mainstream scholars argue they are the product of mother nature.
The Spheroid objects found in Africa date back to a time when humans did not exist on Earth. The mystery objects are elliptical in shape with rough ridges around the center.
Having curious ‘design’ elements on their surface, some authors have argued that the enigmatic spheres are the result of intelligent design.
Side view of typical calcareous concretions, which exhibit equatorial grooves, found in Schoharie County, New York. The cube, for scale, is one centimeter cubed.
According to Michael Cremo (Michael A. Cremo (born July 15, 1948), also known by his devotional name Drutakarmā dāsa, is an American freelance researcher who identifies himself as a Vedic creationist and an “alternative archaeologist”) and other researchers of prehistoric culture, these spheres add to a body of evidence suggesting intelligent life existed on Earth long before a conventional view of history places it here.
Suggestions that Earth was inhabited by different lifeforms in the distant past, millions if not billions of years ago, has created countless debate among researchers and authors.
Tests performed on the spheres have yielded controversial results.
According to Biblioteca Pleyades, a man called John Hund who acquired one of the spheres took it to the California Space Institute at the University of California in order to find out more about the curious artifacts.
“It turned out that the balance is so fine, it exceeded the limit of their measuring technology,“ and these are the guys who make gyrocompasses for NASA.
However, this statement was later subtracted by the California Space Institute which denied that anyone told Hund that the object had the extraordinary properties.
A Klerksdorp sphere. It is 3 to 4 centimeters in maximum diameter and 2.5 centimeters in thickness.
According to their statement, there have been “some error in transmission” and that Hund had completely misunderstood the information regarding these objects.
The mystery sphere acquired by Hund is balanced to within one-hundred thousandths of an inch from absolute perfection.
Nobody knows what these stones are.
One NASA scientist told Hund that they do not have the technology to create anything as finely balanced as this.
Hund said the only way that either nature or human technology could create something so finely balanced would be in zero gravity.
A letter from Mr. Hund, made available by Biblioteca Pleyades offers more details about the enigmatic objects:
The existence of the sphere came to my attention ca 1977 while removing endangered rock engravings from the site where pyrophyllite or “wonderstone”, as it is commonly known in the region, is mined on the farm Gestoptefontein (meaning plugged fountain) near the little village of Ottosdal about 110 km from Klerksdorpin South Africa’s Northwest Province.
I was intrigued by the form of the spheres, grooves around the middle and the fact that they are as hard as steel, while the material (pyrophyllite) in which they are found, is as soft as limestone with a count of only 3 on the Moh scale. As you probably know, pyrophyllite (Al2 Si4 O10 (OH)2) is a secondary mineral and the deposits were formed by a process of sedimentation. On Gestoptefontein volcanic activity was responsible for the forming of outcrops varying in height from about 10 to 100 meters. The smooth and relatively soft surface on the slopes were ideal for the prehistoric dwellers (San) to make their engravings of animal and abstract designs.
On Gestoptefontein these outcrops were “swan” into huge pieces by means of twisted steel cables running zig-zag on pulleys for several kilometers. These blocks were then sawn by the same method into more manageable pieces of about 500 x 500 mm. Occasionally the “sawing cable” got stuck on one of the metal spheres embedded in the pyrophyllite.
They vary in size from 30 – 50 mm in diameter and have perfectly concentric grooves round the center as if they were molded. Inside the hard “shell” some have a spongy substance, while in others it resembles charcoal.
When only partly embedded so that they can be seen on the surface, they are not all spheres, but some are also oblong in form.
Andries Bisschoff, a former professor of the University of Potchefstroom argues the curious objects are limonite concretions.
According to research performed on the spheres, they are found in pyrophyllite a secondary mineral which is quite soft.
The spheres have a fibrous structure in the interior with a shell around them.
The spheres are very hard and according to researchers, it is nearly impossible to scratch them.
According to Roelf Marx, curator if the museum of Klerksdorp, South Africa, the spheres are harder than Steel.
What If Plato’s Atlantis Never Sank, What If Atlantis Lifted Off?
What If Plato’s Atlantis Never Sank, What If Atlantis Lifted Off?
Atlantis is the name of a mythicalislandmentioned and described in the dialogues Timeo and Critias, texts written by the GreekphilosopherPlato.
According to everything we know, Atlantis is said to have been a military power that existed nine thousand years before the time of the Athenian legislator Solon, who, according to Plato, is the source of the story.
Atlantis was said to have been located beyond the Pillarsof Hercules and is described as larger than Libya and AsiaMinortogether.
I was a massive island/continent, and according to Plato’saccounts, a catastrophe not described in Timeo and Critias, made Atlantis disappear “in a single day and night.”
The sea where Atlantis was once located soon became unnavigable because of the shallows, while Athens and the people of Greece forgot the event, since only a few survived, in Egypt, on the other hand, the memory that, thousands of years later, came to Solon’s knowledge and, from his stories and a manuscript to Critias, the narrator, was preserved.
A thin line divides myths from facts
During Antiquity and the Middle Ages the interpretation of the story prevailed as an allegory, but from the Modern Age and, especially since the second half of the 19th century, during Romanticism, the hypothesis about Atlantis became very popular, which led many researchers and authors to identify Atlantis in different cultures.
Modern research, however, suggests that there are no supposed Egyptiansources of the story and that the narrative presents anachronisms and impossible data, which leads to dismissing Atlantis as a historical fact.
Despite this, some researchers, however, admit the possibility that the myth has been inspired by a background of historical reality linked to a natural disaster.
But what if all of this was wrong? What if Atlantis did exist? And what if it never sank?
Was Atlantis real? Image Credit: Shutterstock.
If we take a look at ancient times, we can notice a sheer number of events that have been recorded around the globe which could, in fact, be what many authors today say are UFO sightings.
The idea that thousands of years ago, ancient civilizations were contacted by civilizations notfromEarth has become ever popular, and ancient astronaut theorists have offered ample evidence supporting this idea, throughout the years.
Atlanteans are actually displayed on many occasions as a bloodthirsty civilization. Their goal, according to some scholars was global domination. Thanks to their advanced technology in weaponry, sailing, and warfare, they were capable of winning great battles with ease. They subjected the people of the conquered lands to slavery.
Atlantis was protected by Poseidon, brother of Zeus. Poseidon had five male children and he named his eldest son Atlas, the king of this great civilization and the oceans. The Atlantic Ocean is named in his honor.
Ancient Aliens and Atlantis
If we take a look at ancient Egyptian History, we will come across a document titled The Tulli Papyrus.’
However, rather than being a Papyrus, the Tulli Papyrus is, in fact, a translation of a modern transcription of an ancient Egyptian document that records what is interpreted as fiery ufos. The Tulli Papyrus has cited by many as the most important ancient Egyptian texts which document the visitation of Ancient Astronauts to Egypt thousands of years ago.
In the year 22 third month of winter, sixth hour of the day (…2…) the scribas of the House of Life found it was a circle of fire that was coming in the sky (Though) it had no head, the breadth of its mouth (had) a foul odour. Its body 1 rod long (about 150 feet) and 1 rod large, It had no voice… They hearts become confused through it; then they laid themselves on the bellies (…3…) They went to the King ..?) to report it. His Majesty ordered (…4…) has been examined (…5…) as to all which is written in the papyrus-rolls of the House Of Life His Majesty was meditating upon what happened. Now, after some days had passed over these things, Lo! they were more numerous than anything. They were shining in the sky more than the sun to the limits of the four supports of heaven. (…6…) Powerful was the position of the fire circles. The army of the king looked on and His Majesty was in the midst of it. It was after supper. Thereupon, they (i.e. the fire circles) went up higher directed to South. Fishes and volatiles fell down from the sky. (It was) a marvel never occurred since the foundation of this Land! Caused His Majesty to be brought incense to pacify the hearth (…9… to write?) what happened in the book of the House of Life (…10… to be remembered?) for the Eternity. (Source: de Rachewiltz, Boris, Doubt Magazine, No. 41, the official magazine of the Fortean Society, pp. 214-15, Arlington, 1953.)
The above translation is just one of the many ancient documents that offer ‘evidence’ of ancient alien contact, thousands of years ago.
If we take a look at Mesopotamia, we will find the Ancient Sumerian King List, another historical document which offers more evidence of what many refer to as alien contact:
“…Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years. Alaljar ruled for 36000 years. 2 kings; they ruled for 64800 years. Then Eridug fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira. In Bad-tibira, En-men-lu-ana ruled for 43200 years…
According to the accounts written down on the Sumerian King List, Eight ancient kings ruled over ancient Mesopotamia for a period of 241,200 years, before the Great Flood.
So, if there is historical evidence that suggests how thousands of years ago, people witnessed something extraordinary on Earth, isn’t it possible that Atlantis, the mythical continent was not of Earth, but from somewhere else in space?
What if thousands of years ago, before the time of Plato, an advanced ancient alien civilization existed on Earth, and what if that civilization was Atlantis?
Is it really possible that an entire continent/island disappears in one day and one night? Perhaps not, but a massive, hypothetical spaceship may have disappeared, only it may not have sunk, but rather lifted off to the stars.
Ook de Canadese overheid deed in het geheim onderzoek naar UFO’s. Deze stukken leveren een schat aan informatie op
Ook de Canadese overheid deed in het geheim onderzoek naar UFO’s. Deze stukken leveren een schat aan informatie op
Overheidsdocumenten uit 1967 laten zien dat de Canadese overheid serieus onderzoek deed naar UFO’s, schrijft Vice.
De stukken onthullen dat de overheid hoogstwaarschijnlijk ook jaren later nog UFO-waarnemingen bestudeerde.
De documenten zijn opgediept door Chris Rutkowski, die ze onlangs op zijn blog plaatste. Hij zegt een schat aan informatie te hebben gevonden.
Geen verklaring
“Wat we hier hebben zijn interessante meldingen die zijn gedaan door getraind personeel en getrainde bronnen en onderzocht door getrainde onderzoekers, maar er is nog altijd geen verklaring voor,” zei hij.
“Dat zegt mij dat het UFO-fenomeen echt serieus werd genomen,” vervolgde hij.
De stukken bevatten een aantal interessante meldingen. Zo zag ene Steven Michalak uit Manitoba twee vliegende schotels terwijl hij een rotsformatie bestudeerde.
Radioactief
Eén van de UFO’s vloog met hoge snelheid weg, terwijl de andere op enkele honderden meters afstand van hem landde. Toen hij het object aanraakte, brandde hij zich gelijk.
Bodemmonsters werden geanalyseerd en bleken erg radioactief te zijn. Het was onduidelijk waarom het gebied besmet was met straling.
De Canadese overheid kon geen verklaring vinden voor het incident.
Opener
Een tweede case heeft betrekking op een foto die in 1967 is gemaakt in de buurt van Calgary. Boven de bomen verscheen plotseling uit het niets een UFO, waar Warren Smith enkele foto’s van maakte.
De foto’s werden opgestuurd naar het Canadese ministerie van Defensie en authentiek verklaard.
De documenten zijn opgesteld door officier Douglas Robertson. Hij schreef dat de overheid opener moet zijn over haar onderzoek naar UFO’s.
Learjet and Airbus had Strange Encounter with Mysterious UFO over Arizona
Learjet and Airbus had Strange Encounter with Mysterious UFO over Arizona
A series of strange events occurred high up in the flight levels above Southern Arizona on February 24, 2017.
Between roughly 3:30pm and 4:15pm local time, N71PG, a Learjet 36 belonging to Phoenix Air, and American Airlines Flight 1095, an Airbus A321, had independent close encounters with a strange craft flying at around 40,000 feet.
The planes were flying east at about 37,000 feet between the Sonoran Desert National Monument and the New Mexico border when the incident took place.
The initial report came from N71PG, the Learjet, asking Albuquerque Center if traffic had passed above them. The controller replied "negative," meaning that there was no traffic to his knowledge that would account for such an observation.
The Learjet pilot replies defiantly, "somethin' did." Another pilot chimed in on the frequency saying "a UFO" and the Learjet pilot replied "yeah."
The incident comes after a bizarre and remarkably well documented series of encounters with a mystery aircraft flying at a similar altitude occurred over Oregon and Northern California last October 2017.
In that prolonged event, USAF F-15s were scrambled to investigate and the response from both the FAA and the military was extensive on multiple levels.
Here is the unedited and official audio recording of the Arizona incident – Warzone Link:
Triangle-Shaped UFO Spotted by Astronomers On The Moon’s Surface Sparks Conspiracy
Triangle-Shaped UFO Spotted by Astronomers On The Moon’s Surface Sparks Conspiracy
Earth’s moon is a strange place… apparently.
From mysterious alleged structures on the moon’s surface to stories that Apollo never landed on the moon, countless ‘controversial’ theories have emerged in recent years.
But even before crazy theories about structures on the moon started appearing in recent years, two Russian scientistsMikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, published in July of 1970, an article in the Soviet journal Sputnik called “Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?”
The paper proposed by the two experts offers arguments that would explain the countless enigmas surrounding the moon and its creation. Shcherbakov and Vasin proposed that massive machines were used to melt rock and form long cavities within the Moon, spreading the molten refuse onto the lunar surface.
Their study marked what many ufologists the beginning of countless theories that proposed the moon was heavily connected to advanced alien life.
Now, astronomers have spotted a mysterious triangle-shaped craft on the moon, which conspiracy theorists claim originated from a secret base on the moon’s surface.
The video and images of the mysterious craft show an unidentified object moving on the moon’s surface, and ufo hunters claim, it cannot be ignored by skeptics.
The footage was captured with a high-powered telescope, the shots appear to show a gigantic, black, triangular shape against the backdrop of the moon’s rocky surface, reports the Daily Mail.
The video of the mystery craft was posted on YouTube by Secure Team 10, a YouTube account that explores mysterious occurrences on the moon, as well as UFO footage.
‘You can tell that this is a shadow because you can see the shadow wrapping around the craters’, the narrator of the footage said.
‘This was emailed to me by not only an amateur astronomer but a guy who was the CEO of a corporate jet fleet in Texas.’
Skeptics have already come forward trying to explain the mysterious triangle-shaped craft, arguing that the enigmatic object is nothing more than the shadow cast by a craggy formation on the surface.
However, UFO believers argue that this explanation does not solve the mystery as to how the object is moving.
Other theories suggest that the triangle-shaped object is just a telescope anomaly or even a flaw within the telescope’s lens.
However, and yet again, the theory does not explain how the object is moving between the images.
This footage is just one of the many strange finds that UFO hunters and amateur astronomers have spotted on the moon.
NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Reveals What Lies Beneath Jupiter’s Clouds In Stunning Images
NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Reveals What Lies Beneath Jupiter’s Clouds In Stunning Images
Since the time of Galileo, the observers of the stars have looked at Jupiter and wondered what lies beneath the striking clouds that cover the Gas giants atmosphere.
The analysis of the latest data from the Juno probe, published in March of 2018, will help answer that question. The scientific papers also help understand what lies beyond Jupiter’s thick envelope of gases and whether there is a nucleus that was formed from rock, which could help astronomers answer one of the biggest mysteries about the origin of the Solar System.
According to the latest mission reports and a series of scientific studies, NASA’s probe observes huge storms, detected winds more than 3,000 kilometers below the clouds that cover its atmosphere and details about an almost unknown nucleus.
An image of the North polar region of Jupiter.
Photograph: MSSS/SwRI/JPL-Caltech/NASA
Jupiter has more mass than the rest of the planets of the Solar System together.
Jupiter has the shortest days of all the planets in our Solar System. Since Jupiter is a gas planet, it does not rotate as a solid sphere. Jupiter’s equator rotates a bit faster than its polar regions at a speed of 28,273 miles/hour (about 43,000 kilometers/hour). This makes the Gas Giant the fastest spinning planet in our Solar System rotating on average once in just under 10 hours.
With these characteristics, its gravitational field should be uniform, but for some reason, it is not, there are areas where the giant’s pull is greater, and until now researchers had no idea why.
However, four studies published in Nature provide an explanation for this phenomenon and describe what the interior of the planet is like.
This composite image, derived from data collected by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, shows the central cyclone at the planet’s north pole and the eight cyclones that encircle it.
Scientists analyzed data obtained by NASA’s Juno probe and have found that ‘odd Gravity and rapid jest streatms lie around 3,000 kilometers below the surface of the clouds that cover the planet.
Furthermore, experts have found that at each pole on Jupiter exists a cyclone which is thousands of miles in diameter. The study also explains how these cyclones appear to be surrounded by a polygonal arrangement of storms — eight in the north and five in the south.
“Before Juno, we had no idea what the weather was like near Jupiter’s poles. Now, we have been able to observe the polar weather up-close every two months,” said Alberto Adriani, Juno co-investigator from the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, and lead author of the paper.
“Each one of the northern cyclones is almost as wide as the distance between Naples, Italy and New York City — and the southern ones are even larger than that. They have very violent winds, reaching, in some cases, speeds as great as 220 mph (350 kph). Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, they are very close together and enduring. There is nothing else like it that we know of in the solar system.”
The discoveries reveal unprecedented details about Jupiter’s interior and could help experts finally understand the dynamics that exist inside the gas giant’s atmosphere and other similar planets across the galaxy.
“These astonishing science results are yet another example of Jupiter’s curve balls and a testimony to the value of exploring the unknown from a new perspective with next-generation instruments. Juno’s unique orbit and evolutionary high-precision radio science and infrared technologies enabled these paradigm-shifting discoveries,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio.
“Juno is only about one third the way through its primary mission, and already we are seeing the beginnings of a new Jupiter.”
“Juno’s measurement of Jupiter’s gravity field indicates a north-south asymmetry, similar to the asymmetry observed in its zones and belts,” said Luciano Iess, Juno co-investigator from Sapienza University of Rome, and lead author on a Nature paper on Jupiter’s gravity field.
This computer-generated image is based on an infrared image of Jupiter’s north polar region that was acquired on February 2, 2017, by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument aboard Juno during the spacecraft’s fourth pass over Jupiter.
“Galileo observed the stripes on the Gas Giant more than 400 years ago,” said Yohai Kaspi, Juno co-investigator from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, and lead author of a Nature paper on Jupiter’s deep weather layer.
“Until now, we only had a superficial understanding of them and have been able to relate these stripes to cloud features along Jupiter’s jets. Now, following Juno’s gravity measurements, we understand how deep the jets extend and what their structure is beneath the visible clouds. We are basically going from a 2-D picture to a 3-D version in high definition.”
The result was a huge surprise for the Juno mission scientists because it indicated that the weather layer of Jupiter was more massive, extending much deeper than previously thought. The Jovian weather layer, from its very top to a depth of 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers), contains about one percent of Jupiter’s mass, which is approximately 3 Earth masses.
“By contrast, Earth’s atmosphere is less than one-millionth of the total mass of Earth,” said Kaspi “The fact that Jupiter has such a massive region rotating in separate east-west bands is a surprise.”
The finding is important for understanding the nature and possible mechanisms driving these strong jet streams.
In addition, the gravity signature of the jets is entangled with the gravity signal of Jupiter’s core.
The scientific studies:
The measurement of Jupiter’s asymmetric gravity field:
Exposing Puma Punku: 50 Unbelievable Facts About The Mysterious Ancient Ruins
Exposing Puma Punku: 50 Unbelievable Facts About The Mysterious Ancient Ruins
One of the most mysterious ancient sites composed of supermassive megaliths and stones that appear to be worked with laser-like tools was built thousands of years ago in modern-day Bolivia.
Located not far from another amazing site—Tiahuanaco—the ruins of Puma Punku have puzzled experts for decades.
Some 45 miles west of the city of La Paz in Bolivia, we find an ancient site that is unlike any other on Earth.
Shattering traditional views on ancient cultures, the archaeological site of Puma Punku features incredibly precise stones, precision cuts, and polished surfaces on stones that have defied explanation for centuries.
Some of the stones at Puma Punku were so finely polished that they appear smooth as glass.
Only a few places on earth display this type of stonework.
It’s as if thousands of years ago, an unknown culture used advanced tools to shape and form massive andesite stones. Some of these rocks have been cut with such precision that they fit together perfectly and are interlocked with each other without the use of mortar.
Even more fascinating is the fact that not a single sheet of paper can fit between some of these stones.
In this article, we take a look at Puma Punk and its history, bringing you 50 incredible facts about one of the most mysterious archaeological sites on the surface of the planet.
The ancient ruins of Puma Punku are located in modern-day Bolivia.
Puma Punku is located near Tiahuanaco, in fact, it’s less than a quarter-mile northeast of Puma Punku.
Puma Punku and Tiahuanaco may have been in fact one massive complex.
Tiahuanaco’s most distinctive feature, other than the wall of faces, is the Gate of The Sun.
It is believed that, because of certain markings on stones found at Puma Punku, the Gate of the Sun was originally part of Puma Punku.
Puma Punku has a length of 116.7 meters and a width of 167.36 meters.
The archaeological site of Puma Punku consists of an unwalled western court, a central unwalled esplanade, a terraced platform mound that is faced with stone, and a walled eastern court.
Tiahuanaco may have been an ancient metropolis according to experts, as more than 40,000 inhabitants called it home.
Tiahuanaco features a massive wall which, according to some authors, displays all the races of mankind, even elongated skulls, people wearing turbans, people with broad noses, people with thin noses, people with thick lips, people with thin lips.
At its peak, the Tiwanaku culture dominated the entire Lake Titicaca basin as well as portions of Bolivia and Chile.
In the vicinity of Tiahuanaco, experts excavated a mysterious object called the Fuente Magna Bowl. The Ceramic bowl has Sumerian cuneiform and Proto-Sumerian hieroglyphic written on it.
Since Puma Punku is of great interest to scholars, the area within the kilometer separating the Puma Punku and Kalasasaya complexes have been surveyed using ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, induced electrical conductivity, and magnetic susceptibility.
In Aymara—an Aymaran language spoken by the Aymara people of the Andes—Puma Punku’s name means “The Door of the Puma.”
The archaeological site is a treasure of ancient history located deep within the Andean mountain. Puma Punku is located at an altitude of nearly 13,000 feet.
Given the fact that Puma Punku lies at an altitude of almost 13,000 feet, it means that the ancient site is above the natural tree line, which in turn means NO trees grew in that area.
The fact that no trees grew in the area challenges the idea that the ancient builders used wooden rollers to transport massive stones from where they were quarried.
Mainstream scholars argue that the massive stones used in the construction of Puma Punku were transported thanks to a large labor force.
Another theory suggests that the ancient builders of Puma Punku made use of the llama skin ropes and the use of ramps and inclined planes.
Researchers have found no evidence whatsoever that the ancient builders of Puma Punku knew about the wheel.
Despite the fact that Puma Punku is believed to have been built around 500 AD, many researchers claim that this ancient site, just as Tiahuanaco, could predate the Inca themselves.
The Ancient Inca denied having anything to do with the building of Tiahuanaco or Puma Punku.
This means that the culture that built these sites existed INDEPENDENTLY of the Inca, predating them as well.
Puma Punku is not isolated. It is part of a massive complex of temples, plazas and even pyramids, and is believed to have belonged to the ancient Tiahuanaco culture, which predates the ancient Inca by millennia.
Puma Punku features massive stones. But the fact that there are so many of them make makes Puma Punku’s stones amongst the largest found on the planet.
Puma Punku consists of a mixture of andesite and red sandstone.
Despite having been researched, analyzed, and studied by experts around the globe, not a single researcher has managed to explain how the ancient builders of Puma Punku managed to cut, polish and transport the stones at the site.
Modern day engineers argue that the base of the Puma Punku temple was constructed using a technique called layering and depositing.
Oral legends indicate that the first inhabitants of Puma Punku were unlike ordinary humans.
These ‘early people’ had the ability to ‘carry’ megalithic stones through the air with the use of SOUND.
The eastern edge of the Puma Punku is occupied by what is called the Plataforma Lítica.
The so-called Plataforma Lítica consists of a stone terrace that is 6.75 by 38.72 meters (22.1 by 127.0 feet) in dimension.
This terrace is paved with multiple enormous stone blocks.
One of the largest stones at Puma Punku is 7.81 meters long, 5.17 meters wide, averages 1.07 meters thick.
The estimated weight of this massive rock is 131 metric tons.
But this isn’t the only one. Another massive rock at Puma Punku is 7.90 meters long, 2.50 meters wide, and averages 1.86 meters thick. Its weight has been estimated to be 85.21 metric tons.
Both of these stone blocks are part of the Plataforma Lítica and composed of red sandstone
Puma Punku’s H Blocks are the best-known feature of the site.
The H blocks at Puma Punku have approximately 80 faces each.
Some authors suggest that given the precision cuts and incredible angles seen on Puma Punku’s blocks, it is possible that the ancient builders made use of prefabrication and mass production, technologies far in advance of the Tiwanaku’s Inca successors hundreds of years later.
Experts note that the precision with which these angles have been used to create flush joints is indicative of a highly sophisticated knowledge of stone-cutting and a thorough understanding of descriptive geometry.
As noted by researchers, many of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones. Much of the masonry is characterized by accurately cut rectilinear blocks of such uniformity that they could be interchanged for one another while maintaining a level surface and even joints.
One of the closest stone quarries used by the builders of Puma Punku was located some 10 km away, near Lake Titicaca.
The furthest identified quarry is believed to have been located near Copacabana Peninsula about 90 km away from and across Lake Titicaca.
According to archeological investigations, Puma Punku’s H blocks match each other with such an extreme precision that the architects most likely used a system of preferred measurements and proportions.
While it is amazing what the ancients achieved thousands of years ago in terms of transportation, design, and logistics, the ancient engineers that built Puma Punku and Tiahuanaco were also adept at developing a civic infrastructure at this complex, constructing functional irrigation systems, hydraulic mechanisms, and waterproof sewage lines.
Despite the fact we see ruins today, Puma Punku is thought to have been “unimaginably wondrous,” adorned with polished metal plaques, brightly colored ceramic and fabric ornamentation, and visited by costumed citizens, elaborately dressed priests, and elites decked in exotic jewelry.
There are some still unfinished stones found near Puma Punku.
Experts say that the unfinished stones show some of the techniques that were used to shape the blocks.
Experts say that Puma Punku’s blocks of stone were initially pounded by stone hammers, which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand.
Excavations have documented “three major building epochs, in addition to small repairs and remodeling”.
A series of four papers using data from NASA’s Juno mission reveals intriguing information about Jupiter, including its gravitational field, its atmospheric flows, its interior composition and its polar cyclones.
Jupiter’s winds are tightly connected to the planet’s gravitational and magnetic fields. Image credits: NASA / ESA / UC Berkeley.
When the Juno mission was successfully launched in 2011, astronomers worldwide were thrilled. The shuttle had the potential to reveal valuable information about Jupiter and its satellites — and that potential has been thoroughly fulfilled. The new papers are the latest in a long chain of remarkable findings about the most massive planet in our solar system, adding some much-needed pieces to the puzzle.
In the first paper, researchers led by Luciano Iess of the Sapienza University of Rome in Italy used Doppler data to study Jupiter’s gravitational field. The data allowed researchers to measure Juno’s velocity down to 0.01mm/s accuracy, even while the shuttle is traveling at speeds of up to 70 km/s in orbit.
Jupiter’s gravitational field is famously asymmetrical, which is unusual for fast-rotating and oblate (squashed at the poles) gas giants. This gravitational asymmetry is caused by hydrogen-rich gas is flowing asymmetrically deep in the planet, and Juno was able to study this process.
This picture of the Jupiter’s South Pole is a mosaic of many images acquired by the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper on board the Juno shuttle. The images have been taken in different times while Juno was leaving the planet after the closest approach. What you see here is the heat (measured as radiance) coming out from the planet through the clouds: yellow indicates the presence of thinner clouds and dark red the thicker ones. Credit: NASA/SWRI/JPL/ASI/INAF/IAPS
Two other papers looked at different physical parameters of Jupiter. A team led by Yohai Kaspi of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel used another asymmetry, that of Jupiter’s magnetic field, to calculate the depth of Jupiter’s atmosphere, finding that the mass of the atmosphere amounts for about 1% of the planet’s total mass. Meanwhile, Tristan Guillot and co-authors report that at depths greater than 3,000 kilometers below cloud level, Jupiter’s deep interior is made up of a fluid mixture of hydrogen and helium, rotating as a solid body. They also found that the speed of the above-mentioned winds extend some 3,000 km beneath the cloud level, dropping in intensity with altitude.
Even with all this information, we’re still just barely scratching the surface of what we know about Jupiter.
“We’re at the beginning of dissecting Jupiter,” says Juno mission leader Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.
However, there’s also a downside to the Juno mission: it offered so much valuable data that it’s gonna be very hard to top it. In an accompanying News&Views article, planetary scientist Jonathan Fortney of the University of California Santa Cruz praised the work, writing:
“The work demonstrated here is extremely robust,” Fortney wrote in his editorial. “I do not foresee another leap in knowledge on Jupiter’s interior after the Juno mission ends, unless astronomers are able to study the planet’s internal oscillations, as has been done for the Sun.”
Fortunately, Juno will remain in orbit for at least a couple of years, so we’ll certainly have more to learn about Jupiter.
Journal References:
Measurement of Jupiter’s asymmetric gravity field. Corresponding Author: Luciano Iess (Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy). DOI: 10.1038/nature25776. http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature25776
Jupiter’s atmospheric jet streams extend thousands of kilometres deep. Corresponding Author: Yohai Kaspi (Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel). DOI: 10.1038/nature25793. http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature25793
A suppression of differential rotation in Jupiter’s deep interior. Corresponding Author: Tristan Guillot (Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France). DOI: 10.1038/nature25775. http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature25775
Clusters of cyclones encircling Jupiter’s poles. Corresponding Author: Alberto Adriani (INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome, Italy). DOI: 10.1038/nature25491. http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature25491
We may not be on Mars yet, but new research has made sure that when we get there, we’ll know exactly where to settle.
You don’t know this yet but those blue areas? They mean food! Image credits Wieger Wamelink, Line Schug / Wageningen University & Research
What would life be without food? Well, for starters, really short; but also quite unpleasant. Precisely because of that, colonists going to Mars in the future will need to settle in a place that’s good for agriculture — as good as can be, on a planet with almost no atmosphere.
To their aid comes a study from the Wageningen University & Research, which has identified the areas on Mars which are favorable for the growing of plants. Even though the crops will be grown indoors, local factors still play a part — chief among them being the presence of regolith and ice deposits, both of which will be used to sustain the crops.
Mars’ cropspots
In order to estimate which areas of the planet would be most suitable, the team combined data on Martian geography and geology to create a 3D, Mars-wide landing map, showcasing the best spots for agriculture. The datasets included information about mineral content — relating to calcium and heavy metal content in the soils, for example. Other important element ‘maps’ were those for potassium, chloride, iron, and silicon. The team also mixed in data pertaining to climate, terrain altitude, and radiation exposure.
That’s a lot of data, and several scientific bodies — including the JPL, the Arizona State University, and NASA — pitched in.
“Without them this endeavour would not have been possible”, says Wieger Wamelink, one of the two researchers who created the map.
That’s because each of these elements has a hand to play in the suitability of each area for agriculture. They needed all this data to control for as many factors as possible — and any missing piece could have drastically reduced the work’s applicability. All the maps were merged and, based on the data each contained, were used to calculate a ‘score’ for every area — with high scores marking the best sites, just like in a video game.
Some factors, naturally, were more decisive than others:
“High levels of heavy metals in the soil and strong radiation make a location unsuitable for establishment,” explains Line Schug.
The map revealed that the Mars Pathfinder and Viking 1 landed at ‘hotspots’ for colonies, while the MSL Curiosity and Viking 2 crafts landed on less favorable spots.
The research is part of the larger “Food for Mars and Moon” project unrolling at Wageningen. It aims to develop a sustainable agricultural system that we can take with us to space. The most important element it relies on is the presence of soils and water, both on Mars and the moon.
The first experiments in the project started in 2013. Researchers used soil simulats supplied by NASA — from a volcano in Hawaii (Mars) and a desert in Arizona (moon) — to try and grow crops. At first, the results weren’t very encouraging. But today the team can grow over a dozen crops. The only species that has stubbornly refused to take the plunge to space-soils is spinach. Chemical analysis showed that the plants are safe for human consumption, but there were fears that the plants would accumulate heavy metals more readily than in Earth soils — that’s why this factor was given more importance when creating the agricultural potential map of Mars.
After they were tested, the veggies were cooked and served to those who supported the project via its crowdfunding campaign. I imagine the attendees considered the food to be “stellar” and “out of this world”.
Cosmic rays hitting Earth are ‘bad and getting worse’ says NASA
Cosmic rays hitting Earth are ‘bad and getting worse’ says NASA
Have you ever been hit by a beam of high energy particles from above? Surely you have since it happens all of the time. And the cosmic ray situation is WORSENING. Cosmic rays hitting Earth are bad and are getting worse. That’s the conclusion of a new paper just published in the research journal Space Weather, showing that radiation from deep space is dangerous and intensifying faster than previously predicted.
Cosmic rays were discovered unexpectedly in 1912. It is now known that most cosmic rays are atomic nuclei. Most are hydrogen nuclei, some are helium nuclei, and the rest heavier elements. The relative abundance changes with cosmic ray energy, with the highest energy cosmic rays tend to be heavier nuclei. Although many of the low energy cosmic rays come from our Sun, the origins of the highest energy cosmic rays remains unknown and a topic of much research. This drawing illustrates air showers from very high energy cosmic rays. Cosmic rays may even be important to Earth’s weather, as common lightning may be triggered by passing cosmic rays. via APOD
The story begins four years ago when Schwadron and colleagues first sounded the alarm about cosmic rays. Analyzing data from the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), they found that cosmic rays in the Earth-Moon system were peaking at levels never before seen in the Space Age. The worsening radiation environment, they pointed out, was a potential peril to astronauts, curtailing how long they could safely travel through space.
This figure from their original 2014 paper shows the number of days a 30-year old male astronaut flying in a spaceship with 10 g/cm2 of aluminum shielding could go before hitting NASA-mandated radiation limits:
Cosmic rays in the Earth-Moon system were peaking at levels never before seen in the Space Age and the trend is worsening.
In the 1990s, the astronaut could spend 1000 days in interplanetary space. In 2014 … only 700 days. “That’s a huge change,” says Schwadron.
Galactic cosmic rays come from outside the solar system. They are a mixture of high-energy photons and sub-atomic particles accelerated toward Earth by supernova explosions and other violent events in the cosmos. Our first line of defense is the sun: The sun’s magnetic field and solar wind combine to create a porous ‘shield’ that fends off cosmic rays attempting to enter the solar system. The shielding action of the sun is strongest during Solar Maximum and weakest during Solar Minimum–hence the 11-year rhythm of the mission duration plot above.
The problem is, as the authors note in their new paper,the shield is weakening: “Over the last decade, the solar wind has exhibited low densities and magnetic field strengths, representing anomalous states that have never been observed during the Space Age. As a result of this remarkably weak solar activity, we have also observed the highest fluxes of cosmic rays.”
Back in 2014, Schwadron et al used a leading model of solar activity to predict how bad cosmic rays would become during the next Solar Minimum, now expected in 2019-2020. “Our previous work suggested a ~ 20% increase of dose rates from one solar minimum to the next,” says Schwadron. “In fact, we now see that actual dose rates observed by CRaTER in the last 4 years exceed the predictions by ~ 10%,showing that the radiation environment is worsening even more rapidly than we expected.” In this plot bright green data points show the recent excess:
Previous work suggested a ~ 20% increase of dose rates from one solar minimum to the next. In fact, the actual dose rates in the last 4 years exceed the predictions by ~ 10%, showing that the radiation environment is worsening even more rapidly than we expected.
The data Schwadron et al have been analyzing come from CRaTER on the LRO spacecraft in orbit around the Moon, which is point-blank exposed to any cosmic radiation the sun allows to pass. Here on Earth, we have two additional lines of defense: the magnetic field and atmosphere of our planet. Both mitigate cosmic rays.
But even on Earth the increase is being felt
Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have been launching space weather balloons to the stratosphere almost weekly since 2015. Sensors onboard those balloons show a 13% increase in radiation (X-rays and gamma-rays) penetrating our planet’s atmosphere:
Even on Earth the increase in cosmic rays intensity is being felt. Space weather balloon sensors show a 13% increase in radiation (X-rays and gamma-rays) penetrating our planet’s atmosphere.
X-rays and gamma-rays detected by these balloons are “secondary cosmic rays,” produced by the crash of primary cosmic rays into Earth’s upper atmosphere. They trace radiation percolating down toward our planet’s surface. The energy range of the sensors, 10 keV to 20 MeV, is similar to that of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.
How does this affect us?
Cosmic rays penetrate commercial airlines, dosing passengers and flight crews so much that pilots are classified by the International Commission on Radiological Protection as occupational radiation workers. Some research shows that cosmic rays can seed clouds and trigger lightning, potentially altering weather and climate. Furthermore, there are studies linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias in the general population.
This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. Dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California. via Spaceweather
Why are cosmic rays intensifying?
The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth’s magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.
Cosmic rays will intensify even more in the years ahead as the sun plunges toward what may be the deepest Solar Minimum in more than a century.
The year was 1967 and the Canadian government was super into aliens.
A collection of documents from 1967 found in the national archives give us a hint into just how seriously the government used to take UFO sightings.
The documents outline how the government investigated UFOs—a process that most likely lasted for years afterwards—and breaks down six cases that are “of interest” to the government in detail. The investigations include a man burned by a UFO in Manitoba, some incredibly weird radar sightings by the Department of Defence, an RCMP officer in Nova Scotia who watched a UFO dive below the water and disappear, and a crop circle found in Alberta that was the first investigated by a government.
The documents were found in the national archive by Chris Rutkowski—a man that could probably be best described as Canada’s Fox Mulder—and recently posted to his Ufology blog. Rutowski routinely goes through Canada’s national archives looking for things like this and described the find as “a gem.”
"What we do have in here is rather interesting reports from qualified personnel and qualified sources and investigated by qualified investigators and still there is no explanation," Rutkowski told VICE. "What that tells me is that the UFO phenomena was taking quite seriously by them indeed."
The intro to the document.
Photo via screenshot.
While the government has some of tUFO research readily available online in a database it is still relatively unknown—especially among the general public—how they actually investigated cases and what the bureaucracy was like. This, Rutkowski says, might be “our best snapshot” into this process.
"This is certainly an interesting snapshot because it does show what was happening before and how it was going to move forward and I think it set the stage for how the Canadian military and government were looking at UFOs from that point onward,” said Rutkowski.
The 27 page set of documents—which Rutkowski was kind enough to direct VICE towards—was prepared by Wing Commander Douglas Robertson (a Canadian Forces officer well-known in the UFO community) for someone we do not know in November of 1967. Rutkowski speculates it could’ve been for a newly-appointed Minister of Defence as “the infamous Paul Hellyer [one of the world’s highest ranking alien believers] had left the position a few months earlier.” At the time, as Robertson writes, the National Department of Defence was the body in charge of investigating UFO reports.
The briefing breaks down the seven military categories of UFOs which include hoaxes, mass hysteria, misinterpretations of natural events, advanced military technology, and psychological conditions. However, the seventh and final category is “unusual sightings which the viewer is unable to identify or explain, namely, UFOs.” Hell yeah.
The documents show that the investigation into UFOs was a little bit of a hot potato in Canada as in it was frequently handed off between departments. When a new report came in, researchers would first decide if the object was a meteor or fireball—if so it would be directed to the NRC. If it was something else it would then be put in one of three categories Class A: worthy of investigation Class B: interesting but you don’t need to look into it; and Class C: boring.
Photo via screenshot.
The investigations varied and could be as simple as an interview or as a complicated as getting several other agencies including the RCMP, NRC, Defence Research Board (DRB) or (weirdly) the Department of National Health and Welfare on board. In many of the cases, you can see that post-secondary institutions like the University of Toronto and the University of Manitoba would help out with analysis. The government would also send professionals to investigate the sites in-depth and if the case was intense enough, partner with the United States.
The document was written during an interesting time for UFOs in Canada. As Rutkowski puts it, 1967 was a high water mark for this type of activity in the Great White North. The briefing indicates there was a jump in reports from 1966 to 1967—from about 40 to 167. The case files showcase A) just how strange these occurrences were and B) just how seriously the government was taking the investigations.
Here are breakdowns of the case studies Robertson concludes “may be of interest” to whoever the intended reader of the briefing may be:
Falcon Lake
The first one outlines perhaps Canada’s most infamous “UFO encounter,” the Falcon Lake case. The case revolved around Steven Michalak, a Manitoba man, who says he encountered two UFOs 90 miles east of Winnipeg. While Michalak was analyzing a rock formation he said two flying saucers appeared before him. One flew off at high speed while other landed about 100 feet in front of him. When he reached out and touched the object with his gloved hand, it burned him immediately. The object took off and the exhaust fumes reportedly burned him as well. Michalak was hospitalized for several days as a result.
In the briefing, Robertson writes that soil samples at the site were “analyzed and found to be radioactive to a degree that the samples had to be safely disposed of.” In the briefing, Robertson admits that “neither the DND nor the RCMP investigative teams were able to provide evidence which could dispute Mr Michalak’s story.” Furthermore, the radiologist dispatched to the area was unable to explain why the area was contaminated with radiation. The section ends with “although the investigation has been completed, a satisfactory ending or conclusion is still lacking.”
Many, many things have been written about the Falcon Lake case, including a book Rutkowski wrote with Michalak's son.
Calgary UFO Photo
The second case, again made in 1967, revolves around a famous Canadian photograph taken of a UFO near Calgary. It tells the story of Warren Smith who was out for a hike near Nanton, Alberta.
“A UFO suddenly appeared outside of an area of trees a few hundred feet above the observers,” reads the briefing which goes on to explain how Smith was able to snap two photos of the objects. Smith made prints of these shots, which were then sent to the DND. “The prints were subjected to a detailed analysis by the Photo Intelligence Interpretation Centre. The Centre concluded its investigation by stating, assuming the photos by Mr Smith to be genuine, the UFO fit the description of the objects by Mr Smith.”
Clear Water Bay
The next case outlined in the briefing is focused on a family that was returning to their home in Clear Water Bay by boat when they encountered a UFO. According to the briefing the object appeared about 50 feet away from “Mr. Green” (how he is referred to in the document) and Green decided to investigate it. When he approached the object ripped towards Green and he “immediately retreated using maximum power.” Then the object returned to its original spot.
Green and his family docked the boat and ran to a nearby home to wake all the occupants so they could come and look at the object. They were able to do so for about 15 minutes until it took off. In a nearby home, a neighbour that was interviewed by the government said that while he didn’t see the object he was “listening to his radio at the time the UFO was sighted and received so much static he was forced to turn it off.”
A “detailed investigation conducted by the DND in cooperation with the RCMP” found that Green was a “reliable, competent, and sincere witness with no indulgence tendencies.” They also checked to see if alcohol was consumed at the time, found none, and tested Green’s eyes. Wilted leaves were found at the top of the trees near where the object was allegedly hovering and some were sent to the University of Manitoba for lab testing. The Department of Forestry also checked and found “that they are unable to explain the reason for the wilting.”
The section ends with “the investigation has been concluded without any fixed conclusions or findings being made.”
The RCMP’s Diving UFO
The next sighting was seen by an RCMP corporal out near Barrington Passage, Nova Scotia. The RCMP officer describes seeing an object about 60 feet in length with white lights flying over the water at a low altitude. The object started making a high pitched whistling sound and slammed into the water leaving only one white light visible. RCMP Cpl Wereisky approached the light by boat and it rapidly sank underneath him as he got close. The area was then searched by the Canadian Coast Guard and other boats but nothing was found.
The government conducted a rigorous investigation into this sighting which included an underwater search and wasn’t able to find anything. The government investigation ended, once again, “without finding any fixed findings.”
Department of Transportation Radar Sighting
The next investigation outlined in the briefing is one Rutkowski described as being “very unique.” In July of 1967, the Department of Transportation reported that “an unidentified radar target was tracked through seven sweeps of their radar, witnessed by three controllers, and two technicians some 70 miles east of Winnipeg.”
The target was ripping at intense rate. As outlined in the briefing, it increased from a speed of “720 knots [1,333 km per hour] to 3,600 knots [6,667 km per hour] in one minute and ten seconds.” The briefing explains that the five people who witnessed the radar object are “certain it was a radar target and not something associated with mechanical, electrical, or equipment faults.” On the same day in Kenora, Ontario, a similar object was picked up on the radar.
“The unknown object was under the positive radar for 29 minutes,” reads the briefing about the Kenora sighting. “The object followed Air Canada Flight 405 for a period before disappearing from scope. It reappeared and followed Air Canada Flight 927 for a period of time. DOT are unable to explain these radar returns.”
The DND again did an investigation into this and again were unable to find any conclusions.
Camrose Crop Circle
The final case outlined in the briefing is one in Alberta and, according to Rutowski, contrary to popular belief shows that it was in Canada, not Britain, where a government first investigated crop circles. It occurred outside of Camrose Alberta in August of 1967 when “several deep impressions were made in an unknown object in a pasture.”
The Department of Defence sent out a man who is referred to as “Dr. Jones” in the document to investigate and he found “no physical evidence of any damage to trees or shrubs in the field and no evidence to suggest a deliberate interference or involvement by a person.” Rutowski was able to find further documentation of Dr. Jones investigation and again was kind enough to share them with VICE. In the documents, you can see just how in depth the government got with their investigation.
In the documents, Jones said that he believed it could be a “deliberate hoax” but the hoaxers would “require some equipment and a great deal of determination.” He estimates that in order to do such spherical circles the hoaxers would need two wheels on a 30-foot axle that put pressure of three-quarters of a ton on a pasture. Next Jones has us “consider the UFO possibility” and he breaks down the math behind what size a flying vehicle would need to be in order to produce such marks and comes upon 135 tons.
“This load of 135 tons would be in the right ballpark for a large aircraft, or presumably, small space craft,” ends this section of Jones’ report.
Epilogue
After the case studies, Robertson uses the briefing to discuss possible future plans regarding UFO research in Canada and give several recommendations to our unknown reader. He proposes that the DND hands off the responsibility of investigating UFOs to the National Research Council and that the Director of Operations works as the coordinating agency between the DND units providing field investigations and the NRC.
“It is evident that from investigations conducted by the DND, and from the findings made by prominent and highly qualified personnel, that the primary interest of UFOs lies in the field of science, and to a lesser degree, to one that is associated with national security,” writes Robertson.
Robertson writes that the workload in 1967 regarding UFOs was so large that it was actually becoming detrimental to government workers as it took up so much time. He also writes that the government should be more open with the public about their work in UFOs. This is something Rutkowski—even over 51 years removed—still admittedly agrees with.
"By not being able to comment it made it look like there was something to hide. Of course, this document does show there was some very interesting conclusions, some unexplained cases that should have been made more public,” said Rutkowski. “But when a public relations officer just keeps saying no comment, no comment, it shows that perhaps there is something that is being hidden.
"My reading from this document is that the Canadian Forces didn't really know what to do with UFOs either. It's not that they were hiding everything they just didn't have the expertise in the field and the scientific community didn't want anything to do with it so they were kinda hung out to dry."
The US-funded Aerospace Corporation said there was “a chance that a small amount of debris” could survive re-entry and make contact with Earth.
“If this should happen, any surviving debris would fall within a region that is a few hundred kilometres in size,” the research organisation said in a statement.
The organisation said it was extremely unlikely that a person would be struck by falling debris.
“When considering the worst-case location, the probability that a specific person will be struck by Tiangong-1 debris is about one million times smaller than the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot,” the corporation wrote.
“In the history of spaceflight, no known person has ever been harmed by re-entering space debris. Only one person has ever been recorded as being hit by a piece of space debris and, fortunately, she was not injured.”
However, there is a chance the space station could be carrying a highly toxic and corrosive substance called hydrazine on board.
“For your safety, do not touch any debris you may find on the ground nor inhale vapours it may emit,” Aerospace said.
The Tiangong-1 station was launched in 2011 as one of the great hopes of the Chinese ambitions in space, and as part of a plan to show itself off as a global superpower.
The country’s space agency referred to the station as the “Heavenly Palace” and conducted a range of missions, some of which included astronauts.
Gary McKinnon: The Hacker Who Exposed NASA’s Secret UFO Files
Gary McKinnon: The Hacker Who Exposed NASA’s Secret UFO Files
IT expert and so-called hacker Gary McKinnon has claimed in an interview with RichPlanet TV that he came across information relating to UFOs and extraterrestrial life during his infamous foray into NASA’s computer system.
Police said it was a hoax, but James Lawson wasn’t so sure.
The flattened circle in the middle of his sea of corn looked perfect. It looked, if he was being honest, like something had landed on it.
“Whatever it was, it came down from the elements and took off,” he told The Associated Press a few days after discovering the crop circle on his farmland in Milan, Illinois. “I think it’s a UFO landing.”
Webb: The night police reported UFOs
Crop circles became a small epidemic in the fall of 1990. About a month after Lawson found the round disturbance tattooed on his land on Oct. 16, Mike Thompson discovered something similar only eight miles away.
A co-worker named Mike Searle had been riding his John Deere through Thompson’s cornfields on Nov. 23 when he unexpectedly came to a clearing: an immaculate 64-foot circle.
“I about ran into it, so I backed out and went around it,” Searle said. “I was surprised. All the corn around it was standing.”
Thompson was surprised, too.
Webb: Two tales of UFOs invading the Tri-State
“People might think it’s crazy,” he said. “But it was there.”
No one disputed the crop circle’s existence. The question was, who made them? For Rock Island County Sheriff Tod VanWolvelaere, the answer was simple.
“We think it’s probably just kids,” he said.
Police said there was plenty of evidence to support the hoax theory. On Thompson’s land, they found a hole that looked like it had once been filled with a wooden stake. That could have been used to mark off the circle so the hoaxers could flatten the crops.
Webb: Here are 7 Evansville UFO sightings
They also claimed a local newspaper got an anonymous call not long after Lawson’s discovery. The caller warned authorities that another crop circle was coming.
But none of that does much to explain the high number of UFO sightings that plagued Illinois and the rest of the Tri-State that fall.
According to Francis L. Ridge’s book “Regional Encounters: The FC Files,” 1990 was a busy year. Ridge and his team of UFO field investigators based in Mount Vernon, Indiana, handled almost 70 reports, including 21 close encounters. Seven sightings occurred between Oct. 16 and Nov. 23.
The night of Lawson’s discovery, a 23-year-old woman reported a strange craft hovering over Fort Wayne. Two days later in Argos, Indiana, a father and son driving down the road saw a silent aircraft shaped like a bow-tie lingering over the road. They watched it for 15 minutes before it disappeared.
Webb: Sunday sales are here. Weed may be next
There were sightings in Culver and Plymouth. The strangest, however, occurred in Louisville, Kentucky.
A woman looking out the 12-floor window of her office building in the middle of a sunny day saw a saucer rise from below her and shimmy through the sky in half-circle loops. Co-workers joined her and watched for 20 minutes. Then a second craft appeared. Shaped like a boomerang, it shot toward the saucer. The two merged and vanished.
Meanwhile, the interest in crop circles was igniting. According to the book “Crop Circle: Exploring the Designs & Mysteries” by Werner Anderhub and Hans Peter Roth, there were at least 60 reports of crop circles in the U.S. in 1990.
The problem was even bigger in the United Kingdom where countless fields were branded with ornate patterns. From the sky, they looked like ancient keys or beautiful sewer grates.
Researcher Colin Andrews spearheaded several investigations, and even claimed to coin the term “crop circle.”
Interest grew so much in the U.S. that Lawson accepted an offer to appear on “Unsolved Mysteries.” But his segment was canceled after two other crop circle victims in North Dakota and Missouri declined to appear.
School shooting survivor: 'It makes you sick'
By the fall of 1991, a London tabloid thought they had discovered the source of the phenomenon. Two “jovial con men” named David Chorley and Doug Bower took credit. Giggling, they said they created the crop circles with “two wooden boards, a piece of string and a bizarre sighting device attached to a baseball cap.”
Crop circles fanatics, who had given themselves the science-y title of “cereologists,” didn’t buy it. After all, where did the patterns in Canada and Europe and India come from? Were these two 60-year-old men swimming in frequent flyer miles?
And what about Illinois? Searle certainly didn’t have an answer.
“There’s got to be a reason for it,” he told the Associated Press. “When you figure it out, tell me.”
In de VS verschenen in 1990 vele tientallen graancirkels. Tegelijkertijd werden deze vreemde objecten gezien
In de VS verschenen in 1990 vele tientallen graancirkels. Tegelijkertijd werden deze vreemde objecten gezien
In 1990 verscheen er een graancirkel in het weiland van een boer uit Illinois. Het was alsof er iets op de grond was geland.
“Wat het ook was, het kwam uit de lucht en steeg weer op,” vertelde boer James Lawson aan persbureau AP. “Ik denk dat er een UFO is geland.”
In de herfst van 1990 doken overal graancirkels op in het gebied. Een maand na de vondst stuitte collega Mike Searle op enkele kilometers afstand op een tientallen meters grote graancirkel.
Erg verrast
“Ik reed er bijna overheen, ging terug en reed er omheen,” zei Searle. “Ik was erg verrast.”
De politie zei te denken dat het waarschijnlijk het werk was geweest van kinderen.
Op het land van Thompson vonden agenten een gat in de grond ‘waar mogelijk ooit een stok in had gezeten’. Maar dat verklaart niet het grote aantal UFO-waarnemingen in Illinois gedurende die periode.
Vreemd vaartuig
Toen Lawson zijn graancirkel ontdekte, deed een 23-jarige vrouw melding van een vreemd vaartuig in het gebied.
Twee dagen later zagen een vader en zoon in buurstaat Indiana een onbekend object boven de weg hangen. Ze keken er 15 minuten lang naar, waarna het verdween.
De vreemdste melding werd gedaan in Kentucky, een andere buurstaat, waar een vrouw samen met een aantal collega’s 20 minuten lang twee vaartuigen zag vanuit haar kantoor.
Boemerang
Het ene vaartuig, dat eruitzag als een boemerang, smolt daarna samen met het andere en verdween.
In 1990 werden in de VS tenminste 60 graancirkels gemeld. In Groot-Brittannië lag dat aantal nog veel hoger.
"Maar ook viel mij iets anders veel meer verontrustend op. Namelijk een 2e zon. Ik dacht meteen dit kan niet waar zijn."
Naast een planeet nabij onze zon zien mensen ook steeds vaker hele vreemde luchten, waar geen enkele verklaring voor is.
Langzaam maar zeker beginnen er zich steeds meer vreemde zaken voor te doen aan onze hemel. Zelfs de zogenaamde nuchtere mensen vinden het soms moeilijk om hun eigen ogen te geloven.
We beginnen vandaag in de Amerikaanse staat Utah waar iemand rond een uur of één 's nachts richting huis gaat en dan plotseling stopt, want hij ziet een vreemde lucht. Een vreemde oranjekleurige lucht op een moment dat er geen sprake is van een zon.
De man rijdt er iedere dag langs en nog nooit heeft hij zoiets gezien. Wanneer hij gaat zoeken naar een bepaalde lichtbron is er helemaal niets te vinden.
In het begin van de video hoor je, wat wij niet echt mooie muziek plegen te noemen, maar daarna hoor je gewoon de stem van de man die hoogst verbaasd is over wat hij ziet. Van Utah gaan we naar ons land en wel naar de dijk tussen Lelystad en Enkhuizen. Een lezer schrijft het volgende (dank!):
Hierbij stuur ik een foto welke mijn vrouw vanuit de auto door het raam nam van de zon. We reden op de dijk van Lelystad/Enkhuizen, op 20-02-2018. Na het bekijken valt iets op wat we niet kunnen verklaren. Heeft u hierover een mening?
Het is duidelijk dat er zich gedeeltelijk achter de wolken iets verbergt dat heel sterk lijkt op een planeet. Eén die daar normaal gesproken niet hoort te zijn en die zeker niet als een lensflare kan worden uitgelegd omdat er duidelijk wolken zichtbaar zijn die voor het object langs lopen, iets wat niet gebeurt in het geval van een lensflare.
Van Lelystad gaan we naar de andere kant van de wereld en wel naar het Zuid Amerikaanse Ecuador. De volgende video laat een bizar verschijnsel zien in de lucht. Iets dat het midden houdt tussen een soort vreemde wolk, een lichtstraal of iets anders, maar waarvoor ook geen enkele verklaring is.
Soms zijn er vreemde verschijnselen waar misschien wel een heel "normale verklaring" voor is, zoals de volgende foto die gemaakt is door een lezer vanuit de cabine van zijn vrachtwagen. Hij schrijft (dank!):
Ik heb ook even terug zitten zoeken in mijn fotos. Omdat jullie het al een paar keer over paarse/roze luchten hebben gehad.
23 december 2016 dus al meer dan een jaar geleden, kwam ik sochtends rond de klok van 8 ook van die roze luchten tegen. Maar zo duidelijk als mijn fotos heb ik ze nog niet op jullie site gezien.
Locatie in de buurt van Rotterdam ik gokte dat de lucht boven Oud Bijerland hing. Maar als het een tweede zon zou zijn zou het dus over al te zien zijn in Nederland als je richting het noorden kijkt. Als het een ruimteschip zou zijn is die goed te zien alleen plaatselijk. Ik weet het ff niet , jullie?
Zeker weten doen we het niet, maar het zou hier kunnen om de reflectie van de roze/paarsachtige LED lampen die door steeds meer kwekerijen in de buurt van Rotterdam worden gebruikt.
En dan naar de Nederlands/Duitse grens waar zich afgelopen weekend een merkwaardig schouwspel voor deed.
Een lezer schrijft het volgende (dank!):
Afgelopen weekend zaterdag 03-03 was ik bij mijn ouders op bezoek. Deze wonen net over de grens in Duitsland. Tegen het eind van de middag zaten we in de woonkamer en vanuit daar een prachtig zicht over de landerijen. Maar ook viel mij iets anders veel meer verontrustend op. Namelijk een 2e zon. Ik dacht meteen dit kan niet waar zijn. Is het dan toch waarheid. Planeet Niburu. Planet X. Zelf lees ik al enige jaren over dit onderwerp en vind dit een zorgwekkende ontwikkeling. Als het wel de echte waarheid is en dat ons (de mensheid) hier niets over verteld word. Zelf dacht ik steeds eerst zien dan geloven. Ik geloof dat dat moment nu daar is. En dit benauwd mij behoorlijk.
De foto's die ik bijvoeg zijn aan het eind van de middag gemaakt. En vanuit de woonkamer kijk je naar de Nederlandse/Duitse grens.
Hopelijk kunnen jullie hier iets mee. Graag zou ik van jullie horen wat jullie gedachte hierbij is.
Het zijn hoe dan ook uitzonderlijk mooie opnames. Wat ook mooi is in dit geval is dat de getuige in de zitkamer zit en naar buiten kijkt waarbij iets ongewoons opvalt. Dat betekent dan in ieder geval dat het geen lensflare of iets dergelijks is omdat hij het ook met zijn eigen ogen ziet en ja, het lijkt ontegenzeggelijk op een tweede zon, achter onze eigen zon of, wie weet, wel omgekeerd? Dit laatste omdat er berichten zijn over deze planeet waarbij wordt uitgelegd dat deze tussen onze zon en de aarde kan staan op bepaalde momenten.
Wat dan verder opvalt, is dat dit onbekende hemellichaam plots groter lijkt dan in opnames die nog niet zolang geleden werden gemaakt. Dat zou kunnen aantonen dat het object inderdaad veel dichterbij onze aarde staat nu.
On left, a “dark, worm-like shape” hovered midair in a Northwest D.C. neighborhood in October 2016, a witness said. On right, in August 2017, a family was visiting D.C., when one person said they noticed a little black disc to the right of the Washington...
WASHINGTON — Last month, something strange hovered in the sky just a few miles from the Pentagon, a witness reported.
The witness, who took photos, said whatever it was appeared to rotate and then morph into a group of glowing objects that split apart. The photos are hard to make out, but one does seem to show a set of glittering, airborne lights.
Maybe there’s a good explanation, but the incident is one of the most recent UFO sightings reported in the D.C. region to the Mutual UFO Network, also known as MUFON.
MUFON collects reports of sightings worldwide and investigates them. Another organization, the National UFO Reporting Center, or NUFORC, also accepts reports of UFOs.
“Our first credo is believe the witness. At least listen to the witness,” Susan Swiatek, MUFON’s Virginia director said to WTOP. “That’s a big therapeutic thing we can do for people and get their remarks on the record for hopefully a greater whole that will emerge.”
Swiatek said some people are happy to have a strange encounter, while others are definitely not.
“Just seeing something in the sky that they know they can’t explain, that’s enough to really upset people. And if you can just come alongside them and say, ‘It’s OK, we get those reports all the time,’ then that can help. Conversely, I’ve had people get really upset. They’d rather say ‘I’m crazy, give me a pill,'” she said.
There were more than 100 sightings reported in Virginia last year — up 13 from the number of 2016 sightings reported, MUFON reported.
In 2017, Virginia had more sighting reports than Maryland and D.C. combined. There were 65 reports in Maryland and 11 in the District.
Reports can be filed online, and submissions can remain anonymous.
Tony Angiola, assistant state director of MUFON Virginia and an investigator, has appeared on TV’s “NASA’s Unexplained Files” and “Hangar 1: The UFO Files.”
“Our goal is to take ufology to the point where we’re taking information, giving it to scientists at NASA and being able to do something with it,” he said.
In addition to studying new UFO reports, Angiola and Ben Moss, chief field investigator for MUFON Virginia, also reinvestigate some sightings that were made decades ago.
One reason? It’s easier to fake UFO photos and video today.
Swiatek admits good evidence is hard to find.
“It’s pretty scant. We’re holding on to feathers that are kind of blowing in the wind, and it’s a little tough. But we’re trying to perform science where we can and when we can.”
“I think we are getting somewhere,” she added.
Here are some more interesting alleged sightings from the D.C. area that were reported to MUFON:
Christmas night, 2017: From a balcony in Annandale, Virginia, someone reported seeing “an extremely bright light in the sky” that didn’t move or make a sound. But the witness said it stayed there for hours, and at one point more lights appeared and formed a triangular shape near the first light before disappearing. “I go out to my balcony every single night and never saw anything like this,” the witness wrote. A video was submitted with the report.
August 2017: A family visiting D.C. took a series of photos in quick succession of the Washington Monument. While looking at the photos later, they say they noticed something odd in one of them. “The first picture was totally normal, but in the second one, on the right of the Washington [Monument], I saw a little black disc shaped object just hovering next to it,” reported the submitter.
July 2017: A submitter in Ridge, Maryland, reported waking up to “very bright pulsating light outside my window.” The witness went outside and recorded video of it. “The object was larger then (sic) a normal star and seemed to be rapidly evolving/transforming as it moved across the sky. Then in an instant it went from the transforming sphere into a tiny bright dot,” which moved back and forth before disappearing.
October 2016:A person walking home in Northwest D.C. said they saw something weird hanging in midair, 30 to 40 feet up. “It was a dark, worm-like shape and it hovered in the same position for roughly 3 minutes while I was able to take photos. At first I thought it could have been an unusual entanglement of those narrow balloons used to make balloon animals, however, I don’t believe they could have floated in this position with helium,” that person wrote.
April 2016:Someone who took a dramatic nighttime photo of the Washington Monument also reports capturing something unexplained in one image. It looked like four glowing lights floating in formation next to the monument. “I am an amateur photographer and have taken hundreds of night time shots. I know what airplane and satellite trails look like. This is not one of those,” the sighting description reads. “I have no clue what it is nor am I insinuating it is of alien nature. Just strange and thought you might take a look.”
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETIn 2016 verloor China de controle over Tiangong-1, hun eerste ruimtestation. Binnen enkele weken zal het ding op een ongecontroleerde manier op de aarde neerstorten, en experts kunnen onmogelijk vaststellen waar het 8,5 ton wegende gevaarte zal terechtkomen. Onder meer Europa, de VS, Australië en Nieuw-Zeeland liggen in de vuurlinie.
Het Amerikaanse Aerospace Corporation schat dat Tiangong-1 in de eerste week van april opnieuw in onze atmosfeer zal komen. De European Space Agency (ESA) houdt het op ‘ergens tussen 24 maart en 19 april’. Het ruimtestation, dat ’hemelse plaats betekent, weegt meer dan 8 ton, en volgens de Aerospace Corporation is het goed mogelijk dat het niet volledig zal opbranden in de atmosfeer. Het puin zou dan kunnen neerkomen in een gebied van enkele honderden vierkante kilometers groot.
De kans dat dit in België gebeurt is alvast nihil. Volgens de ESA kunnen de brokstukken terechtkomen ‘overal tussen de breedtegraden van 43ºN en 43ºS’. En daar ligt zowat de halve wereld tussen: van Zuid-Frankrijk en Spanje tot Australië, Noord- en Zuid-Amerika. “Op dit moment is een precieze schatting van waar Tiangong-1 de atmosfeer zal binnendringen onmogelijk.” Het kan dus evengoed in de oceaan zijn.
RVHet risicogebied ligt tussen de twee rode lijnen.
Geen reden tot paniek
Maar zelfs als er brokstukken op het vasteland vallen, is dat geen reden tot bezorgdheid. “Zelfs wanneer een locatie wordt getroffen, dan nog is de kans dat een specifiek persoon wordt geraakt ongeveer een miljoen keer kleiner dan de kans om de nationale loterij te winnen”, aldus Aerospace Corporation. “In de geschiedenis van de ruimtevaart is nog niemand slachtoffer geworden van ruimtepuin. Slechts één iemand zou ooit getroffen zijn, en zij raakte niet eens gewond.”
‘Het is pas in de laatste week dat we met meer zekerheid kunnen spreken over een mogelijke crash’
Jonathan McDowell, astrofysicus aan de universiteit van Harvard
Jonathan McDowell, een astrofysicus van de universiteit van Harvard, maant wel aan tot voorzichtigheid. Tegen de Britse krant The Guardian wees hij op fragmenten van een raket van vergelijkbare omvang die in januari in Peru neerkwamen. “Om de paar jaar gebeurt zoiets als dit, maar Tiangong-1 is groot en compact, dus we moeten het in de gaten houden.”
In 2016 gaf China toe dat het de controle over Tiangong-1 had verloren en dat het niet in staat zou zijn om een gecontroleerde re-entry uit te voeren. McDowell stelt dat het ruimtestation de laatste maanden steeds sneller daalt, momenteel aan een snelheid van ongeveer 6 kilometer per week. Het is moeilijk te voorspellen wanneer de module zal neerstorten, omdat de snelheid wordt beïnvloed door het constant veranderende “weer” in de ruimte.
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Some of those Lights up there aren't Stars
Some of those Lights up there aren't Stars
The Canada France Hawaii Telescope observatory hosts a world-class, 3.6 meter optical/infrared telescope. The observatory is located atop the summit of Mauna Kea, a 4200 meter, dormant volcano located on the island of Hawaii.
On March 6, 2018 the observatory’s webcam captured a series of strange lights seemly flying in formation through the sky.
Although it is difficult to determine what these objects are, the lights are certainly not stars.
As I have mentioned here at Mysterious Universe on a few occasions, I’m not a big fan of sci-fi. Violent horror is far more my thing. But, there are a few sci-fi-based TV shows I did like, such as The Invaders, The X-Files (for a while, until it got crap) and Dark Skies. In other words, sci-fi with a lot of conspiracy attached to it is something I like – when it’s done well. As for sci-fi-driven movies, I thought the first installment in The Matrixseries was very good. The two sequels were just “meh.” Dark City was a good one, too. I guess, with the Area 51 conspiracy connection, I should have liked Independence Day. But, no, I didn’t: it was just a bunch of swaggering, high-fiving, kick-ass bullshit. All of which brings me to the matter of two more sci-fi movies with conspiracy aspects attached to them. And both of them were released in the latter part of 1988. There is a specific reason why I mention the date.
Both movies led to rumors that their combined release amounted to a case of “the Government” preparing us for “the truth” behind the UFO phenomenon. Yes, we’re talking about UFO disclosure – another subject that I have no love for. As I have also stated here previously, I’m sick and tired of all the garbage along the lines of, “I have an insider source who tells me that disclosure is coming at noon three weeks from tomorrow. But, if it doesn’t, don’t worry. It will turn up next year. Or the next. Or the…” My words for these people: “Put up, shut up, or just go away and die.” If the latter, preferably slowly. As for those two 1988 movies they were They Live and Alien Nation.
The former was written and directed by John Carpenter (of The Fog and Halloween fame – two of my favorites). They Livestarred Roddy Piper, Keith David and Meg Foster. It’s a witty, watchable movie of how aliens are secretly taking over the planet in a very unusual and alternative way – and how the human global elite is totally selling its collective soul to the ETs. In fact, it’s very much a satire on 1980s-era society and the “greed is good” phenomenon. At first glance, the aliens look just like us. Identical, in fact. Put on a pair of special sunglasses, however, and you’ll see how they really look: like decaying corpses.
As for Alien Nation, it’s Lethal Weapon, but with extraterrestrials instead of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. The leading cast are James Caan, Mandy Patinkin (who is now in the excellent Homeland show), and Terrence Stamp. Set in the early 1990s, Alien Nation tells the story of what happens when more than a quarter of a million ETs – “The Newcomers,” as they are termed – reach the Earth and are assimilated into human society. And with varying degree of success and failiure. There is prejudice, fear and extraterrestrial racism. If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t spoil things by revealing the plot, except to say that there is an unforeseen conspiratorial angle to the story which ensures you’ll keep watching. So, what does this have to do with UFO disclosure? Well, I’ll tell you.
I started attending UFO/Fortean/paranormal conferences and lectures in the U.K. probably around 1985/1986. Something happened in 1989 onward in the U.K. which I had not seen at conferences before. Namely, parallels with today’s disclosure farce. On at least four or five times at various events around the country, I heard people speculating that the releases of both Alien Nation and They Live – which surfaced in the United States just four weeks apart, the former on October 7, 1988 and the latter on November 4, 1988 – was the work of – who else? – that aforementioned ” the government.”
The truth was just around the corner. People really did want to believe. With the public acclimatized to more and more fictional ET-human interaction (good, bad or somewhere in between), it would surely only be a matter of time before we would finally have the answers. I can recall hearing such rumors throughout the year; the final time – and the most vocal – being at the annual UFO Magazine conference held in Yorkshire, England in September 1989.
Of course, the fact that I’m now writing these words shows that no such disclosure ever came. There was never a plan to use They Live and Alien Nation as a means to initiate disclosure. Thirty years on, though, people are still going on about disclosure and plans to prepare the public. All of these claims and scenarios (in 1988/1989 and now) have one thing in common: they never, ever amount to anything. They didn’t in the late eighties with a pair of fun movies. And they won’t now.
Ever since we as a species have become aware of other stars and planets beyond our own we have let our imaginations run wild with what might lie out there or if we really are alone in the universe upon this spinning rock we call Earth. Are there other creatures or beings inhabiting other stars, and if so we will we ever see them or even talk to them? These are the dreams of our kind, the questions that still loom large across the landscape of our psyche. Is there someone else out there? Further adding to our questions is if there was some other race out there, and we did actually manage to make contact with them across the sea of stars, what would they be like? Would we be able to talk to these alien visitors and perhaps more importantly, what would we say? The conundrum of how we would communicate with extraterrestrials has in recent years been seriously considered, and despite all of the very smart people working on it we are mostly still left in the dark and unprepared for what talking to an alien might actually be like.
If aliens were to come down and greet us, say, tomorrow, we would likely immediately be faced with numerous challenges even beyond language, such as culture, customs, ways of thinking, and even possibly a different concept and perception of reality itself. We might not even recognize them as any type of life as we know it. But if we were to assume that we could just start talking, there would be several potential obstacles right off the bat, not the least of which is that our bodies would likely be completely different, and this could have a lot of possible repercussions.
For one, since language is a representation of our thoughts, which are largely based in how we perceive and interact with the world, human languages reflect the concepts of our senses of sight, smell, touch, and other cues from our physical form, our shared evolution and physical actions and reactions such as laughter or crying. What then happens if an alien race has no eyes or ears or mouth, or experiences the world in a totally different way? What if they do not have the same physical relationship with their as we do with our own? What if they don’t laugh or cry, or emote as we do? They may have no understanding at all of what our concepts of perception are in the first place, a totally different way of experiencing and thinking about time and reality, and so this would reverberate throughout their whole way of thinking and communication, and indeed their very being. This was all rather well-explored in the film Arrival, in which a team of linguists is tasked with deciphering the mysterious language of a decidedly non-humanoid species with a very different language and view of time and space, and within the understanding of which hangs the balance of our survival.
Even within human languages here on Earth we can see how the effects of our sensory abilities, our upbringing, and our perceptions of the world around us can change methods and means of communication. For instance, deaf people use sign language as a means to communicate when the sense of hearing is robbed from them. However, although human languages do all sound very unique and even alien at times, and there are sign languages and whatnot, they are still based on our shared perception of the universe through the same common biology, morphology, anatomy, and physiology, and therefore they follow rules that we can all fathom and which give us at least a chance of reproducing them. With aliens, all bets would be off.
Another important hurdle with differences in physical form would be how we produce and detect sounds, and thereby language, in the first place. For humans we use a vocal tract and our ears, and there is a very finite, set frequency through which we are able to detect the sounds we utter. With aliens they would be working with a whole different set of organs, frequencies, and physiology for speech, that is if they even “spoke” as we know it at all. Their utterances would possibly be made through strange organs for which we have no close approximation or even understanding of, would probably be made at frequencies, vibrations, or cadences that we would not be able to detect or recognize as language, and would be made through a different atmosphere to make it all even worse.
These would be completely non-human sounds, we may not be able to physically discern the distinctions they make, and considering that many animals on our very own planet are thought to be able to speak in language and we are completely in the dark as to what they are saying, this would likely be even more pronounced in something from out beyond the stars. Perhaps impossibly, indecipherably so. Simply put, if we cannot physically detect their sounds and cannot reproduce them, then vocal communication is virtually impossible.
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that we can get past these obstacles, and that we can hear and be heard by each other in a meaningful way. The problems would still not end there. The very rules of our language and the way they are laid out are all intrinsically linked to our biology and mindset as well. An alien language might not have any of the parts of language that we take for granted, such as verbs, adjectives, and nouns, would possibly not view things such as cause and effect or the passage of time the same as us, and would potentially follow certain internal rules, logic, and structures so different from us that we are unable to even mutually comprehend them. We as humans have shared cognition and linguistic structures, basic psychologies, and features, but aliens cannot be counted upon to do so. Jessica Coon, a professor of linguistics at McGill University in Montreal who was consulted on the film about extraterrestrial communication, Arrival, said of this:
What linguists have discovered about human languages is that even though they can sound very different from one another and their grammars do show a lot of variation…languages tend to fall into certain patterns. Most of the world’s languages fall into one of those patterns or the other. The variation isn’t completely unconstrained. Humans seem to be hardwired for this capacity to learn language. Because it is part of our genetics and part of being human, it’s very unlikely that other creatures would have the same kinds of constraints or show the same kinds of similarities that human languages do. We would just have to hope that we would still be able to recognize patterns and match it up with we’re seeing.
The notable American linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky has also offered his thoughts on the inherit linguistic problems with trying to talk with extraterrestrial beings with which we have no shared cognitive understanding of how language works. He has said:
If a Martian landed from outer space and spoke a language that violated universal grammar, we simply would not be able to learn that language the way that we learn a human language like English or Swahili. We’re designed by nature for English, Chinese, and every other possible human language. But we’re not designed to learn perfectly usable languages that violate universal grammar.
The formidable challenge this would present can already be seen even among human languages here on our own planet, where there are sometimes things we have no word for, or a lack of a word for something we take for granted. A tropical people might have no word for “snow,” for instance. Some remote, isolated languages are so alien to others that they do not even have words, concepts or phrases for things most speakers of other languages would likely take for granted. For instance, the Pirahã people of the Brazilian Amazon have no words for counting things. It is either “one” or “more than one,” that’s it. They also have no clear words for certain directions such as “left” or “right,” and this is a daunting challenge to understanding them, even though they are human. Imagine a completely non-human entity with even more outlandish rules of language and grammatical idiosyncrasies and you can see how meaningful exchanges could be a problem. Jesse Snedeker, a Harvard psychologist who studies the development of language in children, has said of this:
We know that every child can learn every possible human language. Every child has to have some sort of internal capacity that allows them to learn language. We have to ask ourselves, ‘Would we have the capacity to learn alien language, and would they have the capacity to learn ours?’ And different people would give you very different answers to that question. On the other hand, there’s the argument that any species that achieves a high level of technology would necessarily understand certain concepts, so that ought to provide a basis for at least a limited degree of communication.
This is where we begin to see that all hope is not necessarily lost, and one thing seen as the key to actually being able to start towards communication with aliens is to find some commonality to use as a starting point. A good way to do this would be to have some sort of key, something like the Rosetta Stone, which helped us to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. This has been an idea tossed around in science fiction before, such as the use of the tones in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or the use of prime numbers in Carl Sagan’s book Contact. If we could have some common frame of reference and somewhere to start, then there is the chance we could work towards further meaningful communication.
One of the best ways of doing this has been seen in recent years as being to use mathematics or scientific information such as physics as a sort of “universal language” and starting point. After all, as the laws of physics and reality are the same throughout the universe, then it stands to reason that any advanced society would have a grasp of these things in a similar way, regardless of how we ultimately think about them or express them in language. No matter what our physiological differences or deviations in ways of looking at the world and universe, physics are the same everywhere, and so would be a commonality we could use.
Carl DeVito, an emeritus faculty member in the mathematics department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, believes that although this exchange of scientific information is perhaps the key to communication with aliens, it nevertheless still faces some challenges. First is that the idea that it is still reliant on understanding the aliens’ systems of measurement, as well as relying on the supposition that they can count and do arithmetic as we do, that they recognize the same elements of the periodic table, that they have adequately studied the different states of matter, and that they know enough chemistry to carry out chemical calculations in the same way we do. He also points out that even though the physics would be the same, these extraterrestrials might calculate their rules of motion and mechanics based on their own unique geometry. DeVito has said of this:
The mathematics of motion is differential calculus. Can we assume that an alien race shares this with us? Differential and integral calculus are so fundamental in so many areas of science that it is hard to imagine a science without them. But this is, perhaps, a human bias. We, of course, can’t know, but we must be aware that the physics of an alien race, even in a fundamental area like mechanics, might differ in subtle but important ways from our own.
Using mathematics and physics is nevertheless still seen as a potential way of breaking through our communication barrier, to the point that it is used by those organizations seeking to reach out and make contact, such as SETI. However, even if we can express simple messages to each other with math, there are still the intricacies of culture and thinking that would shape how messages and ideas are expressed and interpreted. Doug Vakoch, the president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, METI, and respected researcher of xenolinguistics, has said of this conundrum thus:
If they can build spacecraft to come to come to Earth, they have to have an understanding of good engineering, physics, science, math. But doing the nitty-gritty work of going back and forth and making guesses at what an alien says, trying to interpret swirls and determining a sentence or concept? It’s hard. Conveying matters. You need flexibility of language with its infinite combinations. Our art and culture — that’s all from language, that’s not from just raw numbers.
In addition to the promise of using math, there is also the hopeful fact that it is possible that the alien’s psyches and physicality are not as different from our own as we may think after all. For instance, on our own planet we can see vastly different organisms that have nevertheless developed strikingly similar ways of dealing with the environment and world around them, such as evolving eyes, ears, legs, wings and similar organs separately across species, often evolving independently or sometimes the same structures multiple times, all in the process called “convergent evolution.”
Perhaps in other areas of the universe extraterrestrials have evolved similarly enough to ourselves, especially an intelligent tool-using one that would have developed communication and technology in the first place, that our mental architectures and languages are not necessarily mutually unintelligible. This theory postulates that there are enough universal elements to how we think and evolve to certain environmental challenges that this would be enough solid ground for us to delve into a basic framework from which further communication would be possible. Making this even more promising still is that with all of the broadcasts we have spewed out into the stars the aliens would potentially have a good enough sampling of our languages and communications to make talking between us easier without having even met us yet, a possibility of which Coon has said:
If you have enough information and enough of the context and the history, I think there’s hope that even without a lot of interaction you could be able to make at least significant progress in understanding the grammar of a language—again depending on how likely we are to be able to understand alien life at all. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if creatures who could make giant spaceships that just show up on Earth could easily figure out our languages from the many broadcasts we put into outer space, and that we might be able to do the same thing with sufficient resources and sufficient information.
One thing that is worth considering is that even if we overcome all of these considerable challenges and are able to communicate, look at us here on Earth. With our different cultures, ways of thinking, values, and linguistic nuances, even communication between us humans can be confusing and difficult, with misunderstandings and gaffes commonplace. How can we hope to resolve these issues with an alien civilization from another star? In the end, we just don’t know. Since we have never made contact with aliens, at least as far as we know, there is no precedent for it, and we cannot possibly know what to expect when such a day comes to pass. It is impossible to know what form these beings will take, how they will think, or how they will communicate. Will it come easy or will we forever remain closed behind mutual doors of incomprehensibility? The answers remain complex, it is all left entirely to speculation and the imagination, and we will only know when we finally make that first contact we have always dreamed of.
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Filer’s Files #9 – 2018 Venus Is Earth Like - PART I
Naples, Florida object moving across the sky on February 28, 2018
Filer’s Files #9 – 2018 Venus Is Earth Like - PART I
In special reports, this week’s files cover: National UFO Reporting Center Director Peter Davenport, Phoenix Lights Incident, Venus a Planet Like Earth, Venus Rising, Demons, Russia’s New Fighter in Syria, and the Kansas City UFO Flaps.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Arizona, California, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chili, Columbia, France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers.
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Projects
National UFO Reporting Center Director Peter Davenport
The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) is an organization in the States that investigates UFOsightings and/or alien contacts. NUFORC has been in continuous operation since 1974. Peter Davenport has been Director for 23 years, It was founded in 1974 by Robert J. Gribble It has catalogued almost 90,000 reported UFO sightings over its history, most of which were in the United States. In addition to record keeping, the center has provided statistics and graphs to assist others looking for information. UFO reports can be accessed, index by state, index by shape of ufo and index by date posted.
The current director, Peter Davenport, has not claimed that any two phenomena are identical, but has catalogued flying saucers, colored lights, and triangles, throughout the years. Davenport describes himself as a UFO believer, but skeptic, and has been praised by many as providing a valuable service in the field.
Peter says the “Phoenix Lights” event! “It was, in my opinion, one of the two or three most dramatic, and well-documented UFO sighting events in the history of Ufology.”
Phoenix Lights Incident
Phoenix — On March 13, l997, many Arizona residents reported that they had been witness to one, or more, apparently very large craft in the night sky.” v the “Phoenix Lights” event! It was, in my opinion, one of the two or three most dramatic, and well-documented UFO sighting events in the history of Ufology.
“In a recent telephone call I had with Peter Davenport the Director of the National Reporting Center, he revealed that several hours after the “Phoenix Lights” event had concluded, he was telephoned by an individual who identified himself as an Airman in the U. S. Air Force, and that he had been involved that night in providing ground support involving an intercept of at least one of the objects over Phoenix. The photograph of the string of lights, in my opinion, may well be a photo of flares, released over the Barry M. Goldwater Firing Range at Gila Bend, AZ, perhaps to serve as a diversion, following the appearance of the immense triangular craft over Phoenix earlier that night. Those lights first appeared well after the original event had long since ended.
The airman from Luke Air Force Base claimed he just helped launch two McDonnell-Douglas F-15c fighter aircraft to intercept the large Phoenix flying object at 2035 hrs.
Peter Davenport writes, The most important parts of that event, in my view, is that two F-15 C’s intercepted one of the 5 or 6 objects that loitered over the Phoenix area. The object was at approximately 9,000 feet AGL at the time, and the object being intercepted subtended an arc of approximately 135 degree, as viewed from the ground, at the moment of intercept. Upon returning to Luke AFB, the lead pilot reported that the object in front of his aircraft filled his canopy and windscreen, extending from his 9:00 o’clock position to his 3:00 o’clock position, and at the end of the intercept, all the lights on the object suddenly dimmed to extinction, and the radar screen on his instrument panel went to “white noise”…it apparently was made totally nonfunctional and useless. The pilots indicated the craft was several miles wide. “I witnessed a massive delta-shaped craft silently navigate over Squaw Peak, a mountain range in Phoenix, Arizona.
The two F-15’s returned to Luke AFB at approximately 20:40 hrs. (local), at which time the lead pilot reportedly had to be helped out of his cockpit by members of his ground crew…he apparently was unable to exit the cockpit by himself. As he was being helped by those personnel, the pilot recounted to them what the pilot had just been through during the intercept.
One member of the ground crew was ordered to collect several (six?) videos from both F-15s’ cockpits and LANTIRN-II pods, and race them at a dead run to a T-39 that was waiting nearby, with engines running. The airman tossed the tapes or discs into the T-39, (shown) at which time its loading door was hurriedly closed, and the aircraft taxied to the active runway and took off into the night.
Later that day, the same airman who had first called me, called me again to report that he had just come from his commander’s (colonel’s) office, where he…the airman…had just been informed that he was being transferred to a base in Greenland, and that he would be at his new base within 24 hours.
The caller asserted that he had just been personal witness to an intercept of a very large craft by two U. S. Air Force directly above downtown Phoenix, Arizona, at approximately 2035 hrs. on Thursday, March 13, 1997.
Ten years afterward, the 19th Governor of Arizona from 1991-1997.
Fife Symington wrote on CNN about the Phoenix Lights Story discussing various UFO sightings and incidents. Symington, a former Air Force officer, said it did not look like a man-made object. And he ruled out the Air Force assertion that the object was high-altitude flares. It was truly breathtaking. I was absolutely stunned because I was turning to the west looking for the distant Phoenix Lights,” Symington wrote. “To my astonishment this apparition appeared; this dramatically large, very distinctive leading edge with some enormous lights was traveling through the Arizona sky.” “I was never happy with the Air Force’s silly explanation. There might very well have been military flares in the sky that evening, but what I and hundreds of others saw had nothing to do with that,” he wrote.
“We want the government to stop putting out stories that perpetuate the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth conventional terms.
Venus a Planet is Like Earth
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and our closest planetary neighbor. Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus spins slowly in the opposite direction most planets do. NASA claims its thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in our solar system with surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Glimpses below the clouds reveal volcanoes and deformed mountains.
Venus is named for the ancient Roman goddess of love and beauty, the counterpart to the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Venus has a central core, a rocky mantle and a solid crust. At the surface, the rocks are different shades of grey, like rocks on Earth, but the thick atmosphere filters the sunlight so that everything would look orange if you were standing on Venus. Venus is one of just two planets that rotate from east to west. Only Venus and Uranus have this “backwards” rotation. It completes one rotation in 243 Earth days — the longest day of any planet in our solar system, even longer than a whole year on Venus. This infrared view of Venus was acquired by the Japanese Akatsuki spacecraft’s IR2 camera, which observes—among other things—the “warmth” of the planet’s atmosphere on its nocturnal side. This image of great detail shows what seems to be a turbulent boundary (dark area saw tooth).
Chemtrails are produced on Earth to cool the planet, it seems logical that the 25 mile thick clouds and atmosphere protecting Venus would cause the temperatures to diminish. However, NASA claims the clouds cause temperatures to rise to 800 degrees. Conversely Soviet scientists report temperatures of 30C/86 F. in a polar area and clouds 25 miles thick with heavy water vapor and oxygen in the lower atmosphere..
When visiting the Pentagon for a Joint Chiefs of Staff speaker’s job, I was told there was a alien from Venus staying there and I asked to meet him but was refused. Venusian’s could live underground or the temperatures are closer to that on Earth. There are numerous visitors and humans who claim to have been to Venus. On May 2, 1957 radio signals were picked up from Venus on 3.15 centimeters by Ohio State University that continued on other frequencies and for months.
Venus as the Point of Origin
So how can we be so sure that the majority of these extraterrestrials being witnessed throughout the 1950s actually hailed from the second planet of our solar system? Our sister and cloud-shrouded planet Venus as the origination point of the elusive flying saucers was indicated by the observed beings themselves in many ways. The famous inventor Nicola Tesla claimed to be from Venus has have many lesser known persons.
Alleged drawing of Venus, most quarters are underground
Venus Rising A Concise History of the Second Planet
I spent an afternoon with Raymond Keller PhD who is charming and has surprising knowledge of Venus and its history.
Paranormal expert and popular speaker, Dr. Raymond Keller, brings together the impact Venus has on our culture.
His book Venus Rising explores many facets of conditions and life on Venus in many dimensions from a perspective of conspiracies, history, theosophy, ufology and current events, especially space research. Dr. Keller has lived and worked in 44 different countries and has been writing about UFOs and paranormal activity since 1967. He was the founder and director of the Outer Space International Research and Investigations Society (OSIRIS) of Hilmar, California, as well as the publisher and co-editor of the New Millennial Star, a monthly pre-Internet tabloid newspaper. London Book Festival Honorable Mention Southern California Book Festival Honorable Mention
What People Say
The book is well written and scholarly, with detailed attention to various sources of information. This writer commends the author, Dr. Raymond Andrew Keller, II, Ph.D., for a Big Beautiful Book. Welcome, Dear Reader! May you enjoy the journey. — R. Leo Sprinkle, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Counseling Services, University of Wyoming
The really controversial part of the book is the study of Venus in relation to the UFO enigma and contemporary claims of contact with people from other planets, especially Venus. Most mainstream “scientific” ufologists dismiss the first generation 1950s and 60s contactees as frauds and cultists, but my 40+ years of research into contactee cases indicates that some of these individuals actually were in contact with a group of benevolent alien visitors, trying to influence our culture at a critical time in history. Venus Rising is a comprehensive and exciting scholarly endeavor that can inspire further research into this most fascinating subject. —Håkan Blomqvist, Librarian and co-founder of Archives for the Unexplained (AFU), Sweden
In these pages, Dr. Keller reveals that on a personal level we have probably experienced frequent encounters with Venusians, without even realizing it. He blows the cover off the biggest secret that only a handful of powerful individuals know in the highest echelons of officialdom, that space people from Venus look almost exactly like us, but more beautiful/handsome, have infiltrated human society in all nations and have been visiting the Earth since prehistoric times. If you ever had any questions about Venus or Venusians, you will find the answers in this book.—Michael A. LaRiche, Director, Coast-to-Coast A.M. Radio Discussion Groups Northeast, Ohio
I spent several hours with Dr. Raymond A. Keller PhD from West Virginia University who has spoken to numerous contactees and aliens who claimed to be from Venus. Apparently, Venus could be habitable except NASA claims the temperature is very high. While temperatures on Mars are too cold for life. Actual temperature measurements on Mars near the equator were recorded at 90 degrees Fahrenheit. According to Dr. Keller temperatures on Venus are about 75 degrees.
The Soviet Venero 9 spacecraft landed and took this photo of the surface of Venus on October 20, 1975,. A Venusian named Val Thor claimed most people lived underground in huge lava tubes on Venus.
Collecting Biological Samples
Apparently, the Venusians are interested in collecting samples of the Earth’s rich biodiversity. Perhaps they may have a dual motivation in this. The first motivation may simply be food gathering, as in the case above with the harvesting of berries in Norway. The second motivation may be the collection of diverse plant and other life forms for transport to Venus, where they might be safeguarded and propagated for eventual re-introduction or re-transplant on the Earth, following some expected environmental apocalypse in our future. Let’s hope that my first suggested motivation is the prevailing one.
Another example of such biological reconnaissance occurred just one month later in Portugal, when three aluminum-suited men climbed out of a flying saucer to do some picking among the flowers and shrubs on a mountaintop near the village of Almaseda, located in the Serra de Guardnha range. The alien beings and their craft were seen by local resident Cesar Cardoso and three other men from the village. Cardoso described all three of the UFO occupants to a reporter from Lisbon’s Diario De Lisboa newspaper as being over six feet tall. A few days later, the story was picked up by the Auckland, New Zealand Star newspaper of 29 September 1954. Cardoso said that the three aluminum-suited extraterrestrials were “cutting flowers, shrubbery and twigs and putting them in a shining box.” Cesar Cardoso and his friends from the Portuguese mountain village politely declined the offer for them to step inside the Venusians scout ship. See https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/adamski-venusian-scout-3d-3ds/313047.
Cardoso was the only one in his group of four that dared approach the three alien men. One of them dropped what he was doing in the bushes and came over to talk with Cardoso. The alien asked the Portuguese gentleman, in his own language, “Would you or any of your companions like to enter into our scout ship?”
With that, Cardoso sauntered back over to his friends and asked them, “The visitor wants to know if any of us would like to get aboard the flying saucer.” Shaking in their mountain boots, no one was too keen on the idea.
Moving again into the presence of the extraterrestrial, Cardoso said, “I’m sorry, Sir, but nobody wants to go in there at this time. They are all just too frightened.”
“I can understand that,” said the alien, “giving the way your Hollywood productions generally portray the inhabitants of other planets.”
Cardoso told the Lisbon reporter that the extraterrestrial did not insist, but kindly assured him at that time that, “We aren’t really the monsters you may think us to be. We come to Earth with the purest intentions of love and peace, thinking only of a better future for you and your families. Unfortunately, that future may be some time off.”
He and the others then climbed into their scout ship and “flew off vertically at a terrific speed, emitting a shower of sparks” in the process. (Stay tuned to this website of phantomsandmonsters.com for Part III of Dr. Keller’s “Venusian’ Spaceships Are Landing!” The Venus expert, Cosmic Ray, will explore further Venusian concerns as well as the California connection with more spectacular Venusian contacts. You won’t want to miss it!) Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet
Demons
For thousands of years demons were thought to exist and are prevalent in many religions and in our world. Sconce for years has ridiculed belief in various supernatural entities. A demon is a supernatural and often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore. In Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abraham traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity, below the heavenly.
In response to an unsettling increase in demand for exorcisms in Italy, the Vatican has announced plans for a new course to better train priests to perform the practice. Often alien entities are described as spirits, so there may be a connection it that some aliens do not have human’s best interests. I have seen exorcisms and the possessed person had strength and knowledge of ancient foreign languages far beyond a normal person.
The week-long event to be held in April was detailed by Italian priest and exorcist Benign Palilla in an interview with Vatican Radio. According to Palilla, requests for exorcisms from the Church have skyrocketed in Italy over the last few years with experts estimating an astounding 500,000 such cases being reported. Although the priest acknowledged that not all of these events are genuinely connected to an actual possession, he cautioned that the jaw-dropping number of exorcisms indicated that there is some sort of sinister surge happening. Additionally, there has been an increase in UFO reports and sightings of alien visitors.
As to what may be behind this spike, Palilla pointed to the popularity of fortune tellers, tarot card readers and other soothsaying mystics in Italy. He warned that partaking in such ‘sorcery’ unwittingly “opens the door to the devil and possession.” Additionally, Palilla expressed concern that the whopping number of exorcism cases in the country has led to inexperienced priests being enlisted to perform the ritual.
New priests are not taught about the phenomenon of possession leaving newcomers overwhelmed when they are called to confront the issue. By holding this new course on exorcism, Palilla hopes to strip away some of the sensationalism surrounding exorcisms and better prepare priests for the various cases they may encounter.
Many criminals claim they are controlled by demons. Interestingly Nikolas Cruz the Florida school shooter claims that on February 17, 2018, ‘demon voices’ told him to slaughter 17. He opened fire on defenseless students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. as cops reveal they were called to his home 39 times.
The New York Post reports, Cruz the deranged gunman told investigators that “demons” told him how to unleash the massacre..
Law enforcement sources told abc news that Nikolas Cruz, 19, said the voices in his head gave him instructions on how to carry out the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Law enforcement sources told ABC News that Nikolas Cruz, 19, said the voices in his head gave him instructions on how to kill Nikolas Cruz stated, ‘I wanna die killing s*** ton of people.”
Cruz suffered from depression for years. I know he did have some issues and he may have been taking medication. [He] did have some kind of emotional problems or difficulties,” His step mother Lynda had sought counseling for Nikolas at a young age and it is felt he was taking prescription drugs. Bill Nelson said on MSNBC that Cruz wore a gas mask and had smoke grenades. “He set off the fire alarm so the kids would come out into the hallways and thus he had the opportunity with a crowded hallway to start picking off people.”
The school resource officer Scot Peterson and three other responding deputy sheriffs did not enter the school while Cruz was shooting the students. Their failure to enter the school to stop the shooter is under investigation. Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz fired into five classrooms, four on the first floor and one on the second floor, before failing g to shoot out a hurricane strength window where he could have killed many more. He then dropped his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle purchased legally a year ago and fled. He was able to blend in with students running away from the violence.
BenTheBondsman, revealed he had reported to the FBI a comment under one of his previous Cruz videos that read: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter”. The name of the commenter matched Cruz’s. The agency confirmed it was aware of the report. Other comments left by the same account included: “I want shoot people with my AR-15”; ”I wanna die Fighting killing s**t ton of people”; and ”I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people”. Thanks to ABC. We send our prayers to the families and those involved.
Russia’s New Fighter in Syria
A video has emerged purportedly showing two Su-57s operating from Russia’s Khmeimim Airbase in Syria. If genuine, the video will have documented the fifth-generation fighter’s first combat drill.
A video published on the Facebook group ‘Syrian Military Capabilities’ purports to show the brand new Russian aircraft in the skies over Syria. Although the two warplanes appear to look similar to the Su-57, RT cannot verify the authenticity of the video. Russia on Thursday reportedly deployed its advanced Su-57 stealth fighter to Syria, further complicating an environment that the head of Air Combat Command said was already extremely complex. However, USAF pilots flying in support of Operation Inherent Resolve are prepared for scenarios they might face, ACC boss Gen. Mike Holmes said
New Book Release: The Kansas City UFO Flaps by Margie Kay
Margie Kay, author of Gateway to the Dead, Haunted Independence, and a dozen other publications presents yet another exciting book – The Kansas City UFO Flaps.
Margie presents her investigations of multiple spectacular UFO sightings, close encounters, and possible abductions during the Flaps of 2011-2012, historic UFO cases, and the ongoing infamous Kansas City Lights. Kay personally investigated most of the cases in the book, including a Close Encounter of the Forth kind (CE4 with extraterrestrial involvement), and several Close Encounters of the Third kind.
In the book, Margie presents her Grid Theory, which may explain why there are so many UFO sightings and paranormal events in the area as opposed to others.
The Kansas City UFO Flaps is available at Amazon and other major retailers. More detailed information is on Margie’s website at www.margiekay.com
Contact: Margie Kay, margiekay06@yahoo.com or 816-833-1602 Paperback, 79 pages ISBN-10:0998855812 8.5” x 11” Publisher: Un-X Media,
Biography:
Margie Kay is an author, publisher, and paranormal investigator. She owns and operates a specialty chimney contracting company and forensic investigation company in Independence, Missouri along with Gene her husband. Margie is the author of 13 books including Gateway to the Dead: A Ghost Hunter’s Field Guide, Haunted Independence, The Kansas City UFO Flap, ExtraOrdinary, and Missouri Unexplained. She was the publisher and editor of Un-X News Magazine, host of QUEST Radio show on KRGA 1140 AM in Kansas City for five years, and host of Un-X News Radio on KGRA for two years.
Margie Kay is the Director of UnX Paranormal Investigation Group that is working on a documentary film and book about strange events in Missouri. She is the CEO of UnX Media Publishing Company. Kay is a psychic investigator has helped solve more than 50 crimes in the U.S. and abroad.
Margie and the Un-X team of six have completed over 600 paranormal investigations worldwide including sites in the continental U.S., Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Chile, England, Scotland, and Ireland. Over the years, Kay has also been involved in a number of Bigfoot and animal mutilation investigations, which are sometimes related to UFO sightings. Margie is the Assistant State Director for Missouri MUFON and has completed over 450 UFO investigations. She is the newsletter editor for Missouri MUFON, and a Star Team Investigator.
Kay has spoken at over 100 conventions and meetings. She is a dynamic and entertaining speaker. 816-833-1602 or office@unxmedia.com.
We Are Not Alone show reminder
March 6, 2018: from 1 – 2 PM: Tuesday Forum. We Are Not Alone.
Skeptics and debunkers like to put ghosts, Bigfoot, and the leprechauns, elves and fairies of ancient folklore in the same basket as UFOs in an effort to marginalize the phenomenon. However, researcher Stephen Ward makes a compelling case that all of these things do indeed belong together – not as an attempt to belittle the UFO phenomenon but instead to better substantiate its origin. Tune in to the discussion this Tuesday, March 6 at 1PM. EST. Remember after the broadcast this show is available as a podcast from this website: click on Talk Shows–Tuesday Forum–(select date).
“We Are Not Alone” is a two time award winning radio show on WHFR.FM and is a member of the MUFON Radio Network! The show airs the first Tuesday of each month at 1:00 PM EST with new shows each month. Go to http://streema.com/radios/play/23020 All shows are archived at WHFR’s website. Click on “Talk Shows” then the “Tuesday Forum” button and the date of the show. We Are Not Alone is also archived at my website which is http://www.ufoimplications.com/radio_archive.html
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Filer’s Files #9 – 2018 Venus Is Earth Like - PART II
Filer’s Files #9 – 2018 Venus Is Earth Like - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Arizona Light
Sonotia — My son and I were camping at Parker Lake on February 19, 2018, looking for a break in the cloud cover around 6 am. I spotted a light below clouds 3 miles south that moved to less than a mile very quickly. The light pulsed from bright to dark in three phases.
I took 3 photos before my phone failed. It had a grid on the screen that I have not ever seen before. After the light went dark for the last time the phone worked normally. My truck stalled three times when I started it around 10 am to leave. Around home it stalled again and would not start. The fuel pump was affected, I removed it and ran a direct current to it and it started to work again. The object was due south and traveled 3 miles north in an instant.. There were no vehicles moving anywhere. It went from very bright to almost dark. It continued this cycle for 30 minutes before going completely dark at which time my phone began to function normally again. Thanks to MUFON CMS
California Object
Fort Bragg— I see these orb UFOs all the time. Since the end of January 2018, I have seen them every clear night. I see between 1 and 10 of these orbs and occasionally will see other crafts. I’ve been keeping a ufo log for the last 6 years. On February 10, 2018, 5 were seen at 6:20 pm. One large orb came from top of Orion. Saw two more small ones. Then from the west at about 7:05 saw very large yellow orb, that came straight at me and flew right over my head!. Got lots photos, It went behind the large trees and disappeared. I saw one every night for 6 days straight.. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Object
Naples — Driving north on CR 951, I saw the object moving across the sky on February 28, 2018.
. I thought maybe it was an ad banner or something, but it seemed to change speed and shape. I took pictures while driving then the object disappeared into the clouds. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Mississippi Cylinder
Olive Branch — On January 2, 2018, my husband (former airline pilot with 22,000 hours) and I were traveling on Lamar Ext. (Hwy. 78), heading to Memphis just before the Tennessee line, I witnessed two cylindrical objects or shadows moving vertically over the face of a full wolf moon. My husband viewed one, and I viewed both. #2 was higher than #1. He was driving and #2 was out of the bright face of the moon and could no longer be seen when he observed #1. Once the objects or shadows were out of the bright face of the moon, they were no longer visible. Other people viewed this I am sure. If they did, I urge them to speak up.” Thanks Peter Davenport www.ufocenter.com
Missouri Lights
Independence— My husband and three young boys were driving home at about 11:30 PM, on February 28, 2015. I happened to look to NW sky to point the moon out to our kids and saw 5 rectangular columns of light below the cloud deck. They were bright but transparent. 1. They seemed to be free standing but not a spotlight beam. There was absolutely NO connecting beam from the bottom of the columns to the ground. 2. The columns of light do not bounce off the cloud deck. 3. In the full hour these were observed, they did not change in size, movement, shape, pulsate, or location.. Later, I went outside to find them in the same place and unchanged. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Nevada Lights
Las Vegas — My fiancée and I were driving home after picking up food on February 23, 2018, and noticed 3 lights in the sky which from a distance, at first glance. It appeared to be 3 planes flying in unison. Once the craft came closer and as we got a better view, we saw it was one massive craft. I took my phone out and tried to video it. We were moving so it was difficult to capture. The craft made no noise and at its lowest altitude appeared to be around 1,000 ft. It stopped and hovered abruptly and then continued on its path west towards Red Rock. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Disc
Doug writes he was driving 55 mph on Route 3 and spotted something about a mile away. As I got loser I took out my phone camera and took a photo.
It was a total dry summer day but naysayers claim it it’s a drop of water. But it was a flying disc. Thanks to Doug Auld Artist
Oregon Object
Eugene — I’m in direct contact with these beings. They constantly hover over my apartment complex or wherever I am as they did on February 26, 2018. This particular event I heard it hovering over me and sent my boyfriend out to see what it was. Upon my boyfriend exiting the residence he rushed back inside and told me it was a saucer shaped UFO hovering over us. I could hear it flying away and got it on video. We are living on the top floor of a 3 story apartment complex. As I started recording is when it started picking up speed. I lost sight of it as it flew over buildings and out of sight. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Astronaut Sees Texas Orange Orbs
North Texas — About 10:15 pm on July 5, 2017, my family and I were sitting outside. When I looked up into the sky, I saw a fairly large orange glowing orb moving rapidly overhead right about 90 degrees of elevation on July 1, 2013 . It moved from east to west (retrograde, so was not a satellite) and lasted about a minute. The brightness did not seem to change other than dimming as it moved away from us. The visual angle subtended an arc of about 120 degrees across the sky. About one or two minutes later, we saw a group of three similar objects along the same flight path as the first one. My daughter used an iPhone to take video, but it is fairly dark and hard to distinguish the objects. About 3 minutes later two more objects passed overhead, again on the same flight path. There was no sound from the objects. It appeared as if they were glowing from heating up the atmosphere. They moved much faster than orbital satellites or airplanes, but much slower than meteors and did not change brightness as a meteor would upon entering the atmosphere. I am a retired military fighter pilot, retired commercial airline pilot and former astronaut. I have no explanation for what we saw. ((NUFORC Note: Report submitted by former U. S. astronaut. We spoke via telephone with the source of the report, and we suspect that he is a superlative, and highly qualified, witness. PD)) Thanks Peter Davenport www.ufocenter.com
Washington Object
Marysville — I was on my front porch photographing Red tail Hawks on March 1, 2018, and visually scanned the treetops when I noticed a rapidly moving glint way off in the distance between the treetops. I took a photograph. By the time I got my camera to refocus, It was nowhere to be seen. At first I thought it was just another jetliner off in the distance but it left no contrail and it was traveling faster than aircraft fly. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Australia Shadow
Taking pictures of the moon with a Nikon P900, I did not notice until checking the memory card on the computer.
The photo was taken of a strange shadow on moon or near earth on November 27, 2017. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Brazil Sphere
Porto Alegre— My name is Marco Solano and I’m sending a photos I took on December 2, 2017. I took 3 photos from the terrace of a 14 story building where a business event was taking place. Between my cell phone and the horizon above other buildings there are no windows. One thing appeared in a photo. Using ZOOM, an “unidentified” “object” appears where there was nothing a minute before as I looking at a building where I lived when single. I used my Samsung J2 Galaxy Prime G532MT.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Orb
Oshawa, Ontario— I have once again witnessed two UFO sightings on February 25,2018. Not sure if it was the same one doing a 180 back and forth. Attached are the picture enhancements of what was witnessed and filmed. Here’s what I observed on Sunday, February 25,2018, while outside on my deck. I was having a tea admiring a clear sky. After some minutes I noticed a very high bright roundish object in amber white light at 4:55 pm. The object came overhead from the east heading westward over Whitby, Ontario. I ran in the house to return outside in 30 – 40 seconds with my camera but it gone!
Four minutes later a bright white glistening object came towards my position from the west that I snapped to film this unknown. It crossed directly above me heading east at 5:00 pm. This is my first UFO sighting for 2018. Thanks to Paul Shishis
Chili Cylinder
Los Lagos — Here are some of our photos, recently captured on January 16th in the interior of the city of Los Lagos, inside the capital of the Region of Los Ríos, city of Valdivia. It happened that taking a batch of photos to upload to the network of rural sector Folilco-Las Huellas, I took a photo twice of the alleged object that can be seen on the right side. This happened at 20:57 seconds so I made a second take 4 seconds later.
My idea was to photograph a cloud at the bottom of the valley that crosses the Las Huellas sector, located 24 km from Los Lagos to Riñihue, entering by sector Folilco. Since I used a XVision table that has only a front camera, I did not see what I was photographing. This was at 2 am and I was so surprised! Thanks to MUFON CMS
China Object
Beijing – – On March 14, 2017, an unknown flying object was seen flying over clear sky at 4:57 PM (GMT +0800). The camera was pointed to the West direction.
The author’s place was around 4-5 kilometers to the center of Beijing city–Tiananmen Square or The Imperial Palace, where air traffic is totally forbidden.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Columbia Object
Manizales Mountains — I was travelling from Manizales to Bogota, at a point of the mountain you could see a spectacular view of the country below. I stopped to take a picture of the landscape on November18, 2017. I took out my phone and recorded a short video, and two quick photos of the scenery. When I got home I saw in the first picture a dark object of an egg shape. The second picture had a more triangular shape. Thanks to MUFON CMS
After seeing this, I continued my journey home, while watching what it was going to produce. The 5th ball was still there while his friends were already gone, then the 5th ball disappeared like a simple snap of a finger, like on a switch turned off.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Germany Disc
Stuttgart— We were at the zoo and apparently there were several round objects around the treetops on October 5, 2017.
Did not notice what we had till recently we were looking at our Germany pictures.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Norway Disc
–Romsdalen Valley— . Hiker filmed mysterious disc-shaped UFO with glowing lights hovering over mountain in Romsdalen Valley,
Photo taken in March 2016. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Portugal Objects
Lisbon — I was taking pictures of this fortress called Forte do Guincho, near Cascais, Lisbon. I didn’t notice the object until I saw the picture. I took one in the same place less than a minute before and another a minute after and the object does not appear before and after. When I saw it I thought of a cigar shape UFO. I only can describe it as something clear cigar shape, very high in the sky, grey. I would like to know what can it be…a plane, or UFO? What do you think about it? Thanks to MUFON CMS
Spain Sphere
I was taking pictures of some clouds on February 9, 2018, that formed a storm. When editing on the computer I saw this spherical object.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
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Crashed UFO, or a landslide runout trail?Image: Google Earth
There’s a viral video making the rounds showing the site of an apparent crashed UFO on the remote island of South Georgia. On closer inspection, however, the object’s true identify is something considerably more banal: It’s just a stupid rock that fell from a nearby mountain.
The video was produced by Secureteam10, and it’s amassed 1.58 million views since being posted on March 3rd. It claims to show a UFO that crashed on South Georgia, which is located about 2,500 miles (4,150 km) from the Antarctic Peninsula. “Unknown Object Leaves Trail of Mystery in Antarctic,” proclaims the introductory text, as if we’re watching a trailer for John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Using Google Earth, the video’s narrator, Tyler Glockner, takes us on a journey in-and-around the purported crash site, saying the snow-covered object appears “to be some sort of massive, elongated, or cigar-shaped object that at some point—and we don’t know when—came to a screeching halt in the snow leaving behind it almost a thousand-meter-long trail.”
He points to “some damage that has been done to the side of [a nearby mountain] where we can see this wave of debris extending outwards from the mountain itself, with the main object and trail coming out of it, smashing its way in a very sharp trail,” adding that it “doesn’t look like your typical trail made by a snowball or a ... piece of ice tumbling and rolling across the hillside.” Glockner says the object must be something artificial—likely a spacecraft measuring some 63 meters (206 feet) in length.
The snow-covered object, and the trail leading back to the mountain.
Image: Google Earth
SecureTeam claims to be “your source for alien & UFO related videos, leaks and information,” but in this case they’ve clearly fancied themselves as geologists. Thankfully, we have a real geologist in the form of The Landslide Blog’s Dave Petley to set the record straight. Aside from pointing out the rather obvious trajectory problem of the alleged UFO in relation to the “damaged” mountain, Petley says the object in the video is very clearly a boulder that has fallen from that very same mountain
The debris field, or landslide deposit, trailing from the nearby mountain.Image: Google Earth
The smoking gun in this case is the clearcut presence of a landslide deposit directly above the object in question. As Petley writes at his blog:
Of course the runout trail is quite unusual. I am not sure if a block has detached from within the mass, and then moved downslope, or if it tumbled onto the mass from above, and then slid. If I was a betting man (and I am not) I might go for the latter explanation, but without a more detailed investigation I am speculating. But either way this is conventional landslide behaviour on snow and ice covered surfaces, and we have seen other large isolated boulders travel long distances. In this case the elongate shape of the block favoured sliding rather than rolling, but as the friction of the substrate is low the distance travelled can be large.
Nice try, Secureteam10—but you’ve clearly stumbled upon a fallen boulder. Sadly, and as the YouTube video’s corresponding comments section demonstrates, science that interferes with wishful thinking tends to be dismissed by the UFO asshats who are easily swayed by these sorts of arguments.
This clip of a triangular UFO flying through the air has been dubbed the 'best evidence ever' for proof of extraterrestrial life.
The bizarre object soars through the skies from an unknown location in the US and UFO enthusiasts believe that it could be a TR-3B, the alleged surveillance aircraft of the United States Air Force.
Theorists have been quick to point ut that the footage shows a craft with three lights at each point that do not flash.
Planes have to have blinking lights by regulation which has led people to believe that it is something out of this world.
The object appears to be moving left to right at high speed as it is it filmed by a dashcam.
The YouTube description read: 'On the 26 of January this amazing video was shot from a dashboard camera.
'The footage captured a TR-3B UFO in mid-air and it might be the best evidence ever of the TR-3B UFO ever.
'The triangular object is coming in from the left of the screen and you can see that this object doesn't have any blinking lights like a normal airplane should have
This clip of a triangular UFO flying through the air has been dubbed the 'best evidence ever' for proof of extraterrestrial life
'It is flying at a very low altitude which is very strange for a normal airplane.'
The TR-3B was suspected to be developed under a 'black project', which allegedly use money unaccounted for in official government budgets.
Conspiracy theorists conclude that the craft is able to fly into space and report back to the US government.
The allegations suggests that these ships are created at top-secret military bases such as Area 51 in Nevada, by reverse engineering alien technology.
Viewers have claimed that this video is evidence that the 'TR-3B' is being used by the government to monitor aliens.
The bizarre object soars through the skies and UFO enthusiasts believe that it could be a TR-3B, the alleged surveillance aircraft of the United States Air Force
One posted on YouTube: 'I believe this to be reversed engineering from NASA or the Military Industrial Complex.
'Most objects we see in our skies nowadays are human made, but there is a small percentage that are unexplained.'
And another added: 'Of course it's a TR-3B, the US built about 60 of them.
'It's powered by nuclear energy and it's a military spy plane.'
However there is yet to be solid evidence proving that this was a TR-3B.
Founder of ufofinterest.org Scott Brando, told the Express he believes the video is a hoax due to anomalies with the 'motion tracking'.
He added that landing lights of planes can also make a triangle shape when filmed at night.
Theorists have been quick to point out that the footage shows a craft with three lights at each point that do not flash
It's a good time for aliens—or rather, for tiny critters here on Earth that scientists think might look an awful lot like aliens. That's thanks to three recent papers evaluating some of the weirdest, most hardy terrestrial life we know of and considering how it might fare in extraterrestrial environments.
Our first stop on the trip is to our next door neighbor, Mars. The Red Planet is dry, salty and experiences dramatic temperature swings—much like the Atacama Desert in Chile, where it hardly ever rains.
But when a deluge fell on the desert in 2015, scientists watched as the desert suddenly came to life. So a team sampled all the bacteria they could find and sequenced their DNA—and realized the critters had been there all along, biding their time until they could thrive. And if they can do it here, there's no reason to think similar microbes might not take the same approach on Mars.
Much farther out in the solar system is a frozen moon with a very different environment—Europa, which hides a giant ocean tucked away under an icy crust. Scientists don't know for sure what's going on under there, but they wanted to do a little thought experiment.
The surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/SETI INSTITUTE
So they took one of the weirdest bacteria scientists have ever discovered, which was found at the bottom of a South African gold mine, where it forms communities all by itself and without ever receiving energy from the sun. Then, they decided to try to figure out whether the microbe could survive off nuclear energy beneath Europa's crust—and found it likely would make itself at home.
Finally, Saturn has a frozen moon much like Europa, called Enceladus. But this moon has an extra trick: It spits giant plumes of hot water and gas out into space. That makes it surprisingly convenient for scientists to figure out what's in all the water trapped under the icy crust—they can just fly a spacecraft through the plumes. That's how they know there's plenty of methane to be found on Enceladus.
And that's intriguing because we have here on Earth a class of primitive organisms that create methane. So in another new study, scientists created Enceladus-like conditions here in a laboratory and looked to see how these critters responded. Again, their results were pretty heartening for those hoping for alien life.
Of course, none of these experiments actually confirm extraterrestrial life, they just keep our options open. They don't even narrow down where we would find it, since there are other strong contenders—Saturn's moon Titan, which has a thick hazy atmosphere, is another likely candidate. That's why the only way to know where we'll find life first is to keep looking.
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NASA Is Hiding Evidence Of Life On Mars Claims Scientists Who Says Has Evidence
NASA Is Hiding Evidence Of Life On Mars Claims Scientists Who Says Has Evidence
Evidence of alien life is being covered up by NASA, according to a researcher from Buckingham University.
NASA is hiding fossil footprints of extraterrestrial activity on the surface of Mars, said Barry DiGregorio, who works at the Center for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham (United Kingdom) and plans to publish a report promising to reveal all hidden details to the public.
DiGregorio plans to release a ‘bombshell report’ which will reveal, once and for all, how NASA is well aware of this discovery, and how the American Space Agency has chosen to keep the truth hidden from the public.
According to NASA, these are most likely crystals, while a scientist from the Center for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham claims they may be trace fossils.
Image Credit NASA.
According to the researcher, who has already been dubbed as a ‘controversial scientist’ by numerous internet new outlets, NASA might be ignoring the discovery because of its plans for a manned mission to Mars in the 2030’s.
However, despite the fact that Dr. DiGregorio plans to reveal the truth to the public, NASA says that the shapes captured in the images from Mars which DiGregorio claims are evidence of alien activity are nothing more than rock crystals that are still being investigated.
DiGregorio specializes in studies of microscopic life found on Earth.
The expert argues how some of the images beamed back by the Curiosity rover show clear evidence of patterns similar to Ordovician trace fossils found on Earth.
According to the researcher from the University of Buckingham, there’s evidence of trace fossils on Mars.
These are made as living beings go on about their lives, leaving behind footprints like burros and waste, rather than the remains of the creatures themselves.
DiGregorio believes how the fossils on Mars may represent evidence of soft-bodied creatures that may have once existed on the surface of the red planet.
According to Dr. DiGregorio, fossils on Mars represent signs of soft-bodied creatures which may have roamed its surface in the distant past. This image shows trackways from a slug-like animal, dating back from the Cambrian period, found in Blackberry Hill, central Wisconsin.
In an interview with the Daily Express, the researcher explained:
“If not trace fossils, what other geological explanations will Nasa come up with?”
“Nasa has turned its back on trying to get the data on this. The order came down from HQ that they should move the rover on to the next point. They didn’t feel it was important enough to look at, I thought that was very odd, despite the fact Gale Crater was host to probably a series of lakes for billions and billions of years. We’re talking about something that might have been equivalent to the Ordovician period on Earth.”
NASA, on the other hand, claims how DiGregorio’s discovery is most likely crystals.
“The crystals theory does not add up. The crystals do not branch or twist. We are talking about something that could have been similar to the Ordovician period on Earth,” he said in reference to the geological period that occurred between 485 and 444 million years ago.
A mineral vein with bright and dark portions distinguishes this Martian rock target, called “Rona,” near the upper edge of “Vera Rubin Ridge” on Mount Sharp. The MAHLI camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took the image after the rover brushed the dust off the gray area, roughly 2 inches by 3 inches.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The agency ordered Curiosity, claims the British scientist, to continue its journey without meticulously studying the ‘fossils’ found in the Gale crater area, which was supposed to be a lake area billions of years ago.
And despite being called out for his claims, DiGregorio isn’t the only one who believes there could have been living on the surface of Mars.
In the past, numerous claims have been made about Mars and how the red planet may have been inhabited at one point.
Dr. John Brandenburg, for example, is another scientist who claims that Mars was home to alien life.
However, and unlike DiGregorio, Dr. Brandenburg indicates that Mars was once home to complex alien life, rather than simple soft-bodied creatures, as proposed by DiGregorio.
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Professor Stephen Hawking Says Knows What Existed Before The Big Bang
Professor Stephen Hawking Says Knows What Existed Before The Big Bang
According to the latest comments made by Professor Stephen Hawking, Before the Big Bang, time existed in a bent state that was distorted along another dimension.
The famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has an answer to the enigma of what existed before the Big Bang, the beginning of the Universe, 13,800 million years ago.
In an interview with his colleague Neil deGrasse Tyson in the TV show ‘Star Talk‘ broadcasted on the National Geographic Channel, Hawking explained what existed before the universe.
“The boundary condition of the universe…is that it has no boundary,” Hawking said.
According to this theory, the history of the universe is not a flat line but a four-dimensional, curved object, “just as the surface of the Earth, but with two more dimensions,” Hawking said. As explained by Professor Hawking, the Big Bang was practically the formation as we today understand as ‘time,’ since this event, 13,800 million years ago, broke the known laws of physics. It also means that anything that may have existed before the event, simply cannot be applied to our understanding of time and existence.
In other words, Professor Hawking argues that there isn’t really anything such as ‘a time before the big bang’.
Professor Hawking added that one can regard imaginary and normal space-time as beginning at Earth’s south pole – a point where the normal laws of physics hold.
However, the world-renowned astrophysicist explained; “There is nothing south of the South Pole, so there was nothing around before the Big Bang.”
To better understand what Professor Hawking means, you would have to imagine a remote control that controls the universe and press the Rewind button.
The universe is constantly expanding.
As you go back in time, the universe contracts.
Rewinding to the Big Bang, the entire universe is reduced to the size of a single atom, Hawking said.
This subatomic ball of everything is known as the singularity.
Within this small and enormous mass of heat and energy, the laws of physics and time as we know them cease to function.
In other words, time as we understand it literally did not exist before the universe began to expand.
On the contrary, the arrow of time contracts infinitely as the universe gets smaller and smaller and never reaches a clear starting point.
As noted by TechTimes, Hawking says during the show that before the Big Bang, time was bent — “It was always reaching closer to nothing but didn’t become nothing,” according to the article. Essentially, “there was never a Big Bang that produced something from nothing. It just seemed that way from mankind’s point of perspective.”
In a lectureon the no-boundary proposal, Hawking wrote: “Events before the Big Bang are simply not defined because there’s no way one could measure what happened at them. Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang,” reports Space.com.
10 Ancient Artifacts That Hint We May Have Been Visited By Ancient Astronauts
10 Ancient Artifacts That Hint We May Have Been Visited By Ancient Astronauts
“The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” Those are the words of Carl Sagan in his novel Contact.
So yeah, the universe is big. Scratch that. The universe is so big, we can’t really understand it.
Out of the billions of stars and trillions of planets that make up the known universe, modern-day scholars argue only Earth has life.
However, in recent years we have made extraordinary progress in exploring our solar system which has led us to a number of discoveries that suggest that not only are we not alone in the universe, but alien life could exist in our solar system, in the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, or even on Mars.
One of my favorite quotes about alien life comes from a man called Giordano Bruno, born in 1548.
Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and cosmological theorist, perhaps best-known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then-novel Copernican model.
Bruno suggested how stars we see in the night sky are nothing other than sun’s surrounded by their own alien worlds.
He was one of the first to ponder whether or not it was possible for alien life to exist on those distant exoplanets:
“In space, there are countless constellations, sun’s, and planets; we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless Earth’s circling around their sun’s…” ― Giordano Bruno, Despre infinit univers si lumi.
Bruno also suggested there was a possibility the universe was infinite and could have no celestial body at its “center”.
Because of his ‘modern thinking,’ Bruno was found guilty of heresy and he was burned at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori in 1600.
“The ancients observed, and we also observe, that sometimes things fall to earth, or some things leave the earth, or whatever parts we may be near…”
Go further back in time before Giordano Bruno, say 2,000—3,000 years, and you’ll arrive at a time when great ancient civilizations like the ancient Aztecs, Maya, and ancient Egyptians ruled the Earth.
These ancient civilizations, and many others across Southern America, North America, Asia, and Africa were great pioneers during their times in various fields, including engineering, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc.
Their level of advancements was huge, and the Maya, for example, were considered as one of the greatest pre-industrial civilizations of the world.
The Egyptians built some of the most impressive ancient structures on the surface of the planet, the pyramids, and managed to transport massive blocks of stone, some weighing more than 50 tons across great distances without ‘simple’ technologies such as the wheel.
Halfway around the world, pre-Inca civilizations did the same thing when they managed to quarry andesite rock and transport it across vast distances, building some of the most impressive archaeological sites on the surface of the planet.
So, how did they do it?
Was it all brute force?
Slaves?
Did they possess some sort of technology we are unaware of?
Or is it possible, as some ancient astronaut theorists suggest, that an otherworldly influence was at play?
Thankfully, these ancient civilizations recorded their history as best as they could and left behind a number of ancient writings, monuments, and figurines that tell an impressive story.
Here, we take a look at ten amazing ancient figurines that were created by the ancient thousands of years ago, which, according to ancient astronaut theorists around the globe, suggest ancient aliens were in contact with ancient cultures around the globe, thousands of years ago.
The handbag of the gods. Scholars are unable to explain why these mysterious ‘handbags’ appear in illustrations from ancient cultures across the globe.
Is that a humanoid in some sort of space suit? This ancient figurine dates back to 600-900 AD.
Olmec Monument 19, from La Venta, Tabasco, shows a man holding the handbag in his hand.
The sarcophagus of king K’inich Janaab’ Pakal or more commonly known as King Pakal is one of the most talked about subjects when it comes to the ancient alien theory.
After more than a year without the use of the Curiosity Mars rover's drill, engineers have devised a workaround and tested it for the first time on the Red Planet. More testing of the drill method is planned for the future.
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has conducted the first test of a new drilling technique on the Red Planet since its drill stopped working reliably.
This early test produced a hole about a half-inch (1-centimeter) deep at a target called Lake Orcadie -- not enough for a full scientific sample, but enough to validate that the new method works mechanically. This was just the first in what will be a series of tests to determine how well the new drill method can collect samples. If this drill had achieved sufficient depth to collect a sample, the team would have begun testing a new sample delivery process, ultimately delivering to instruments inside the rover.
The drill is used for pulverizing rock samples into powder, which are then deposited into two of Curiosity's laboratory instruments, Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, and Chemistry and Mineralogy, or CheMin. Curiosity has used its drill to collect samples 15 times since landing in 2012. Then, in December of 2016, a key part of the drill stopped working. The drill was designed to use two finger-like stabilizers to steady itself against rock; a faulty motor prevented the drill bit from extending and retracting between these stabilizers.
After months of effort, Curiosity's engineering team was able to extend the drill all the way out past the stabilizers, but the motor issue persisted. The team posed a challenge for themselves: could they hack the space robot's drill so that it didn't require stabilizers?
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used a new drill method to produce a hole on February 26 in a target named Lake Orcadie. The hole marks the first operation of the rover's drill since a motor problem began acting up more than a year ago.
After months of effort, Curiosity's engineering team was able to extend the drill all the way out past the stabilizers, but the motor issue persisted. The team posed a challenge for themselves: could they hack the space robot's drill so that it didn't require stabilizers?
Images of a new hole on upper Vera Rubin Ridge, Curiosity's current location, suggest this “MacGyvering” is paying off. By leaving the drill in an extended position, engineers were able to practice this freehand drilling for months during testing here on Earth. This hole at Lake Orcadie provides the first insights into how this operation will work in the Martian environment.
If the previous method was like a drill press, holding the bit steady as it extends into a surface, it's now more freehand. The NASA rover is using its entire arm to push the drill forward, re-centering itself while taking measurements with a force sensor. That sensor was originally included to stop the rover's arm if it received a high-force jolt. It now offers Curiosity a vital sense of touch, preventing the drill bit from drifting sideways too much and getting stuck in rock.
"We're now drilling on Mars more like the way you do at home," said Steven Lee, deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Humans are pretty good at re-centering the drill, almost without thinking about it. Programming Curiosity to do this by itself was challenging -- especially when it wasn't designed to do that."
It hasn't been easy. JPL engineers spent many double-shifts testing the new method, including on weekends and holidays. They also had to perform "invasive surgery" on their testbed -- a near-exact replica of Curiosity -- installing a force sensor to match the one on Mars. The Earth-based testbed's sensor had stopped working before Curiosity's launch in 2012, but there had never been reason to replace it before now.
"This is a really good sign for the new drilling method," said Doug Klein of JPL, one of Curiosity's sampling engineers. "Next, we have to drill a full-depth hole and demonstrate our new techniques for delivering the sample to Curiosity's two onboard labs."
Leaving the drill in its extended position means it no longer has access to a device that sieves, portions and delivers the rock powder to the rover's instruments (called Collection and Handling for In-Situ Martian Rock Analysis, or CHIMRA).
JPL also had to invent a new way to deposit the powder without this device. The new solution makes Curiosity look as though it is adding seasoning to its science, shaking out grains from the drill's bit as if it were tapping salt from a shaker.
This tapping has been successfully tested here on Earth -- but Earth's atmosphere and gravity are very different from that of Mars. Whether rock powder on Mars will fall out in the same volume and in a controlled way has yet to be seen.
In the days ahead, Curiosity's engineers will evaluate the results of this recent test and likely drill again nearby. If enough sample is collected, they will test portioning the sample out, using the rover's Mastcam to estimate how much powder can be shaken from the drill bit.
Though this first test of the drill didn't produce a full sample, Curiosity's science team is excited to see this step on the path back to routine drilling. There's high interest in getting multiple drilled samples from Vera Rubin Ridge, especially from the upper ridge that contains both gray and red rocks. The latter are rich in hematite, an iron oxide mineral that forms in the presence of water. Drilled samples might shed light on the origin of the ridge and the history of its interaction with water.
The Roswellian Syndrome: How Some UFO Myths Develop
The Roswellian Syndrome: How Some UFO Myths Develop
An analysis of four classic flying-saucer incidents reveals how debunking can send a mundane case underground, where it is transformed by mythologizing processes, then reemerges—like a virulent strain of a virus—as a vast conspiracy tale. Defined by the Roswell Incident (1947), this syndrome is repeated at Flatwoods (1952), Kecksburg (1965), and Rendlesham Forest (1980).
Near the very beginning of the modern UFO craze, in the summer of 1947, a crashed “flying disc” was reported to have been recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. However, it was soon identified as simply a weather balloon, whereupon the sensational story seemed to fade away. Actually, it went underground; after subsequent decades, it resurfaced as an incredible tale of extraterrestrial invasion and the government’s attempt to cover up the awful truth. The media capitalized on “the Roswell incident,” and conspiracy theorists, persons with confabulated memories, outright hoaxers, and others climbed aboard the bandwagon.
We identify this process—a UFO incident’s occurring, being debunked, going underground, beginning the mythmaking processes, and reemerging as a conspiracy tale with ongoing mythologizing and media hype—as the Roswellian Syndrome. In the sections that follow, we describe the process as it occurred at Roswell and then demonstrate how the same syndrome developed from certain other famous UFO incidents: at Flatwoods, West Virginia (1952); Kecksburg, Pennsylvania (1965); and Rendlesham Forest (outside the Woodbridge NATO base) in England (1980). Between us, we have actually been on-site to investigate three of the four cases (Joe Nickell at Roswell and Flatwoods, and James McGaha—a former military pilot—at Rendlesham).
Roswell (1947)
Here is how the prototype of the Roswellian Syndrome began and developed:
Incident.On July 8, 1947, an eager but relatively inexperienced public information officer at Roswell Army Airfield issued a press release claiming a “flying disc” had been recovered from its crash site on an area ranch (Berlitz and Moore 1980; Korff 1997). The next day’s Roswell Daily Record told how rancher “Mac” Brazel described (in a reporter’s words) “a large area of bright wreckage” consisting of tinfoil, rubber strips, sticks, and other lightweight materials.
Debunking. Soon after these initial reports, the mysterious object was identified as a weather balloon. Although there appears to have been no attempt to deceive, the best evidence now indicates that the device was really a balloon array (the sticks and foiled paper being components of dangling box-kite–like radar reflectors) that had gone missing in flight from Project Mogul. Mogul represented an attempt to use the airborne devices’ instruments to monitor sonic emissions from Soviet nuclear tests. Joe Nickell has spoken about this with former Mogul Project scientist Charles B. Moore, who identified the wreckage from photographs as consistent with a lost Flight 4 Mogul array. (See also Thomas 1995; Saler et al. 1997; U.S. Air Force 1997.)
Submergence. With the report that the “flying disc” was only a balloon-borne device, the Roswell news story ended almost as abruptly as it had begun. However, the event would linger on in the fading and recreative memories of some of those involved, while in Roswell rumor and speculation continued to simmer just below the surface with UFO reports a part of the culture at large. In time, conspiracy-minded UFOlogists would arrive, asking leading questions and helping to spin a tale of crashed flying saucers and a government cover-up.
Mythologizing. This is the most complex part of the syndrome, beginning when the story goes underground and continuing after it reemerges, developing into an elaborate myth. It involves many factors, including exaggeration, faulty memory, folklore, and deliberate hoaxing.
For example, exaggeration played a large role in the Roswell case. Major Jesse Marcel, who had helped retrieve the wreckage, often made self-contradictory and inflated assertions, giving, for example, grossly exaggerated statements about the amount of debris, its supposed imperviousness to damage, and other matters. It is now known that Marcel made claims about his own background—that he had a college degree, was a World War II pilot who had received five air medals for shooting down enemy planes, and had himself been shot down—that were proved untrue by his own service file (Fitzgerald 2001, 511). Kal Korff (1997, 27), who uncovered many of Marcel’s deceptions, found him “exaggerating things and repeatedly trying to ‘write himself’ into the history books.” As he described the debris, Marcel said the sticks resembled balsa but were “not wood at all” and had “some sort of hieroglyphics on them that nobody could decipher” (apparently referring to the floral designs). As well, there were “small pieces of a metal like tinfoil, except that it wasn’t tinfoil” (Berlitz and Moore 1980, 65).
Faulty memory was another problem. For example, Curry Holden, an anthropologist from Texas Tech, claimed a student archaeological expedition he led had actually come upon the crashed flying saucer and the bodies of its extraterrestrial crew. Holden’s wife and daughter, however, insisted that he had never told them of such an event; neither was there any corroboration in his personal papers. Holden was ninety-six when he provided his account to UFOlogist Kevin Randle, at which time his wife told Randle her husband’s memory “wasn’t as sharp as it once had been. He sometimes restructured his life’s events, moving them in time so that they were subtly changed” (Fitzgerald 2001, 514). Roswell mortician W. Glenn Dennis, who provided information on alien “bodies” at the Roswell AAF Hospital, also seriously misremembered and confabulated1 events. According to James McAndrew’s The Roswell Report: Case Closed (U.S. Air Force 1997, 78–79), Dennis’s account “was compared with official records of the actual events he is believed to have described” and showed “extensive inaccuracies” that included “a likely error in the date by as much as twelve years.”
The processes that create folklore also played a role in shaping the Roswell legend. As reported in Leonard Stringfield’s book Situation Red: The UFO Siege (1977), a great number of tales proliferated about an alleged crash of an extraterrestrial craft and the retrieval of its humanoid occupants. The many versions of the story—what folklorists call variants—are proof of the legend-making, oral-tradition process at work. The aliens were typically described as little, big-eyed, big-headed humanoids, a type that began to be popularly reported after they were described by “abductees” Betty and Barney Hill in 1961 (Nickell 2011, 184–86). The pickled corpses were secretly stored—mostly anonymous sources claimed—at a (nonexistent) hangar-18 at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, or some other location subsequently supposed to be Area 51 (the U.S. government’s secret test facility). From a folkloristic point of view, the crash/retrieval stories seem to function as “belief tales,” that is, legends told to give credence to a folk belief—in this instance a burgeoning one (Nickell 1995, 196–97).
Roswell folklore was obviously fed in part by deliberate fakelore. Related hoaxing began in 1949 when—as a part of the forthcoming sci-fi movie The Flying Saucer (1950)—an actor posing as an FBI agent avowed its claim of a captured spacecraft was true. In 1950, writer Frank Scully reported in his Behind the Flying Saucers that the U.S. government possessed three Venusian spaceships complete with humanoid corpses. Scully got his information from a pair of confidence men who were hoping to sell a petroleum-locating gadget allegedly derived from alien technology. By 1974, a man named Robert Spencer Carr was giving talks in which he claimed firsthand knowledge of where the preserved aliens were hidden; however, the late claimant’s son reported that his father made up the entire yarn. Other Roswell hoaxes included the ineptly forged “MJ-12 documents” (that continue to fool UFOlogist Stanton T. Friedman); a diary that told how a family came upon the smoldering crashed saucer and injured aliens (but was written with an ink not manufactured until 1974); and the notorious “Alien Autopsy” film, showing the dissection of a rubbery extraterrestrial who appeared to be from the distant Planet Latex (Nickell 2001, 118–21).
Reemergence and Media Bandwagon Effect. In 1980 the story resurfaced in the media with publication of the book The Roswell Incident. Its authors were Charles Berlitz (who had previously written the mystery-mongering best seller The Bermuda Triangle, containing “invented details,” exaggerations, and distortions [Randi 1995, 35]) and William L. Moore (who was a suspect in the previously mentioned “MJ-12” hoax [Nickell with Fischer, 1992, 81–105], as well as author of The Philadelphia Experiment, an expanded version of another’s tale that itself proved to be a hoax [Clark 1998, 509]). The Roswell Incident’s book jacket gushed: “Reports indicate, before government censorship, that occupants and material from the wrecked ship were shuttled to a CIA high security area—and that there may have been a survivor!” It adds that “. . . Berlitz and Moore uncover astonishing information that indicates alien visitations may actually have happened—only to be hushed up in the interest of ‘national security.’”
The book is replete with distortions. Consider rancher Mac Brazel’s original description of the scattered debris he found on his ranch—strips of rubber, sticks, tinfoil, tough paper, and tape with floral designs (Nickell 2009, 10)—the same as shown in photos (U.S. Air Force 1997, 7) and consistent with a Mogul balloon array with radar reflectors. However, Berlitz and Moore impose a conspiratorial interpretation, saying that in a subsequent interview Brazel “had obviously gone to great pains to tell the newspaper people exactly what the Air Force had instructed him to say regarding how he had come to discover the wreckage and what it looked like.” In fact, Brazel quite outspokenly insisted, “I am sure what I found was not any weather observation balloon,” and he was right: the debris was from a Project Mogul array, much of it foiled paper from the radar targets (Berlitz and Moore 1980, 40).
Berlitz’s and Moore’s The Roswell Incident launched the modern wave of UFO crash/retrieval conspiracy beliefs, promoted by additional books (e.g., Friedman and Berliner 1992), television shows, and myriad other venues. Roswell conspiracy theories were off and running, typically linked to strongly anti–U.S. government attitudes. The Roswellian Syndrome would play out again and again.
Flatwoods (1952)
About 7:15 pm on September 12, 1952, at the tiny village of Flatwoods, Braxton County, West Virginia, some boys on the school playground saw a fiery UFO apparently land on a hilltop. Running to a nearby home, they obtained a flashlight and were joined by a beautician, her two sons, and a dog. As the unlikely group went up the hill toward a pulsating light, one boy aimed a flashlight at a pair of eyes shining through the dark. The group saw a tall “manlike” entity with a round face surrounded by a “pointed hood-like shape.” Suddenly the monster emitted a high-pitched hissing sound and swept at them with “a gliding motion as if afloat in midair,” while exhibiting “terrible claws.” The group ran in panic, and the next day skid marks and a black gunk were found at the site (Nickell 2000).
The incident attracted journalists, writers (like paranormalist Ivan Sanderson), and apparently two Air Force investigators in civilian clothes. Soon, the UFO was identified as a meteor; seen in three states, it had only appeared to land when it disappeared behind the hill. The pulsating light was obviously one of three airplane beacons in view at the site. The tall “monster” was believed to have been a large owl on a limb (since then, more evidentially determined to have been a barn owl [Nickell 2000]), and a local man identified the ground traces as caused by his pickup truck and its leaking oil pan. The case soon slipped into obscurity.
Fifteen years elapsed, then Sanderson included the case as Chapter 3 of his Uninvited Visitors (1967). The credulous Sanderson (once fooled by a rubber Sasquatch frozen in ice [Nickell 2011, 87–90]) opined that the Flatwoods incident involved multiple UFOs—citing contradictory accounts of, in each instance, a single object. Instead of suspecting that witnesses were mistaken or that the meteor might have broken apart, he insisted that “to be logical” we should believe that there was “a flight of aerial machines” that were “maneuvering in formation.” For some reason they lost control, but one managed to land at Flatwoods. Its pilot emerged “in a space suit” but, observed, headed back to the craft, which—like two others that “crashed”—soon “vaporized” (Sanderson 1967, 37–52).
Sanderson was followed in 2004 by Frank C. Feschino Jr., who published—with an introduction and epilogue by Stanton T. Friedman—The Braxton County Monster: The Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed. Feschino interviewed elderly witnesses, who, according to the book’s promotional copy, “wanted to talk about the story for the first time in fifty years.” For example, Kathleen May, the beautician who was with the boys when they encountered the “monster” in 1952, recalled a mysterious “government” letter that had been shown her by local reporter A. Lee Stewart Jr. She claimed it told of experimental craft the “Navy Department” operated in the area the evening of the incident. Feschino huffs: “The test ship explanation told to Mrs. May in the mysterious letter was not even remotely possible in 1952. The Air Force knew that Mrs. May did not see a meteor in Flatwoods. So they convinced her that it was something explicable, like an experimental ship. But there were no experimental ships in 1952!” (Feschino 2004, 336). Actually, according to reporter Stewart, what he had shown May was only a press release for an issue of Collier’s magazine with an attached photo of a moon ship (Feschino 2004, 323–36).
Kecksburg (1965)
About forty miles southeast of Pittsburgh, in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, on December 9, 1965, a boy playing outdoors saw an object plummet into nearby woods. In fact, a brilliant aerial object had been seen by numerous observers over a large area. The Greensburg Tribune-Review reported in its county edition of December 10, “Unidentified Flying Object Falls Near Kecksburg” and “Army Ropes Off Area.” However, that newspaper’s city edition headlined its story “Searchers Fail To Find Object” (Gordon 2001, 288). From photographs of the cloud train from the object, Sky & Telescope magazine (February 1966) identified it as a very bright meteor (a type of fireball known as a bolide). The story went underground.
The Kecksburg incident remained obscure until September 19, 1990, when it became the season opener for NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries. The show launched the story as one of a crashed UFO, its secret retrieval, and a government conspiracy to hide the truth. Nearly a quarter of a century after the original incident, two local men had begun to claim that before authorities arrived they had entered the wooded area and encountered a large metallic object, shaped like an acorn, partially embedded in the earth. At the back of the object, the witnesses said, using wording that is curiously similar to that of the Roswell incident, were markings like ancient Egyptian “hieroglyphics.” And, also like the Roswell case, the UFO was allegedly transported to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, where it was kept in a sealed building (Gordon 2001, 288–90). Such shared motifs (as folklorists call story elements) suggest the Kecksburg incident was influenced by the Roswell story. One source even claimed bodies were recovered at Kecksburg but subsequently retracted the claim (Young 1997).
The various later claims do not fare well, and more than fifty residents of Kecksburg sent a petition to Unsolved Mysteries attempting to forestall the broadcast. These included the fire chief in 1965, Ed Myers, and a couple, Valerie and Jerome Miller, whose home the TV show wrongly claimed had served as a “military command post” during the UFO recovery. Actually, both the Air Force and the state police reported the day after the incident that nothing had been discovered and that all that had been carried from the site was search equipment (Young 1997).
Rendlesham Forest (1980)
For three days in late December 1980 in East England, a series of UFO close-encounter incidents occurred in Rendlesham Forest, located between two British NATO bases—RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge—that were at the time being leased by the United States Air Force. The incidents began in the early morning of December 26 (although sources disagree, some giving December 25 or December 27) and lasted for three successive days. Security patrolmen witnessed a bright streaking light that appeared to crash into the forest. Investigating, the men soon saw lights they attributed to a UFO—a bright white light plus an apparent vehicle with “a pulsing red light on top” and “blue lights underneath.” As the patrolmen proceeded closer, the object “maneuvered through the trees and disappeared” (Halt 1981). The following day, three seven-inch-diameter depressions were found at the site. That night “burn marks” were seen on trees, and radiation readings were also obtained. On an audiotape made by Deputy Base Commander Lt. Col. Charles Halt that same night, one hears an unidentified person call out regarding the bright light, “There it is again . . . there it is,” with a five-second interval (“Rendlesham” 2011). Later that night “three starlike objects” were seen in the sky; one to the south, Halt (1981) said, “was visible for two or three hours and beamed down a stream of light from time to time” (Butler et al. 1984; Ridpath 1986; Hesemann 2001).
As we now know, a bolide (a brilliant meteor) streaked over southern England at the time of the first Rendlesham sighting. Subsequently, the Suffolk police investigated the initial sighting and determined that the only light visible from the area was that of the Orford lighthouse (Ridpath 1986). The Orford Ness beacon stood in the very direction airmen were looking and flashed at the same five-second interval reported for the UFO. Later, other claims were convincingly debunked: the red and blue lights were from a police car; the “landing” depressions were rabbit diggings; “burn marks” on pines were axe blazings oozing resin; the low radiation readings had been taken with equipment not intended to measure background radiation and were therefore meaningless; and the starlike lights were probably indeed stars, namely Sirius, Vega, and Deneb (“Rendlesham” 2011; Ridpath 1986). Meanwhile, the Rendlesham story remained unpublicized for almost three years.
In October 1983 the story leaked out and made headlines in the British tabloid News of the World: “UFO Lands in Suffolk—and That’s Official.” It was followed by a book, Sky Crash: A Cosmic Conspiracy (1984), written by Brenda Butler, Jenny Randles, and Dot Street and based in part on hypnosis sessions with “Art Wallace”—actually former U.S. Airman Larry Warren who was the News of the World’s informant. Warren’s claim to have been a witness to the Rendlesham incident has been disputed by others, including Halt (“Rendlesham” 2011). By this time bizarre rumors had surfaced that a commander had met three little humanoid extraterrestrials who had emerged from the landed UFO, but the alleged contactee denied it (Butler et al. 1984, 86).
In time, Jenny Randles, who helped hype the Rendlesham incident, came to doubt the extraterrestrial connection, stating, “While some puzzles remain, we can probably say that no unearthly craft were seen in Rendlesham Forest. We can also argue with confidence that the main focus of the events was a series of misperceptions of everyday things encountered in less than everyday circumstances” (qtd. in “Rendlesham” 2011).
* * *
No doubt other instances of the Roswellian Syndrome could be given (even beyond UFO encounters), but the ones we have presented here are major examples of the type. Of course, each is different in its own way (for example, the Rendlesham Forest case had a much briefer period of submergence than did Roswell). And some famous UFO incidents—the Phoenix Lights of 1997, for instance (Davenport 2001)—have not followed the same course. (For one apparent reason, it did not involve a specific site on the ground visited by investigators.)
Nevertheless, we believe we have identified a genuine pattern in cases in which, during a period of submergence, the mythologizing tendency has been at work followed by a reemergence—rather like a new, more virulent strain of a virus. It appears that UFOlogists are always looking for a Holy Grail case to verify their belief in extraterrestrial visitation, and when that does not pan out (most UFO reports prove little more than misidentifications, ambiguous sightings, fake photos, and the like) they seek out the old cases and are rewarded with much more sensational testimony. By identifying and analyzing this process, we hope to promote more critical thinking regarding these and other sensationalized cases.
Schrodinger’s equation is a fundamental equation of quantum mechanics that describes how particles behave at the subatomic level. Caltech researchers were astonished to learn, however, that the same equation popped up when they modeled the behavior of self-gravitating astrophysical disks. Examples of such disks include the rings of Saturn or the disks of gas and dust that surround young stars. However, there’s nothing ‘quantum’ about these objects — and yet there seems to be a connection.
Illustration of a planetary system surrounded by a debris disk.
Credit: NASA
Schrodinger’s equation is one of the cornerstones of quantum physics. It plays a similar role to Newton’s laws and conservation of energy in classical mechanics, describing how quantum objects (such as atoms and subatomic particles) tend to behave in the future based on their current state. When you get to that level, things start to get a bit bizarre.
One counter-intuitive behavior that Schrodinger’s equation describes is that subatomic particles behave more like a wave than like a particle, a phenomenon which physicists refer to as wave-particle duality.
Massive astronomical objects often have smaller objects gravitating around them, whether it’s stars going around a black hole or space debris around a star. This debris often arranges itself in a disk, like our solar system, for instance. The problem is that it’s always been challenging to study the behavior of self-gravitating disks because they exhibit distortions, bending and warping like ripples. Capturing the disks’ complexity can be challenging, which is what a team of researchers at Caltech is trying to address.
Konstantin Batygin, a Caltech assistant professor of planetary, and colleagues turned to perturbation theory in order to develop a mathematical representation of disk evolution. This simplified model, which is based on an equation developed by 18th-century mathematicians Joseph-Louis Lagrange and Pierre-Simon Laplace, assumes that the constituents of astronomical disks are mathematically smeared together into thin “wires”. These wires form concentric circles that loop around the disk and exchange orbital angular momentum.
Batygin looked at the extreme cases where the concentric circles get thinner and thinner until they merge into a continuous disk, and what this limit rendered proved quite surprising.
“When we do this with all the material in a disk, we can get more and more meticulous, representing the disk as an ever-larger number of ever-thinner wires,” Batygin said in a statement. “Eventually, you can approximate the number of wires in the disk to be infinite, which allows you to mathematically blur them together into a continuum. When I did this, astonishingly, the Schrodinger Equation emerged in my calculations.”
“This discovery is surprising because the Schrodinger Equation is an unlikely formula to arise when looking at distances on the order of light-years,” says Batygin. “The equations that are relevant to subatomic physics are generally not relevant to massive, astronomical phenomena. Thus, I was fascinated to find a situation in which an equation that is typically used only for very small systems also works in describing very large systems.”
Credit: James Tuttle Keane, California Institute of Technology.
The study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests that the shape of the disk is well-represented by the wave function of a quantum particle that bounces around the inner and outer walls of a disk-like cavity. It’s unexpected to learn that such a fundamental equation to quantum mechanics, which scientists are used to dealing with almost exclusively in the domain of the “very small”, can also describe the long-term evolution of astrophysical disks. It’s an intriguing discovery that two seemingly unrelated branches of physics can be described so similarly, mathematically speaking — and such knowledge should prove useful for researchers who model astrophysical objects.
“Fundamentally, the Schrodinger Equation governs the evolution of wave-like disturbances.” says Batygin. “In a sense, the waves that represent the warps and lopsidedness of astrophysical disks are not too different from the waves on a vibrating string, which are themselves not too different from the motion of a quantum particle in a box. In retrospect, it seems like an obvious connection, but it’s exciting to begin to uncover the mathematical backbone behind this reciprocity.”
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Command Sgt Major Rober Dean And Sgt Clifford Stone Say Aliens Live Among Us
Command Sgt Major Rober Dean And Sgt Clifford Stone Say Aliens Live Among Us
He was the official/unofficial UFO Consultant dealing with UFO matters during his 22-year stint in the army.The US government knew a whole lot more about UFO's than it was telling the American public.
Obviously, the aliens have far, far superior tech the US government was trying to acquire.
To me the positive here is that there is a controlled disclosure attempt happening using their military personnel.
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UFO filmed in Texas January 2018
UFO filmed in Texas January 2018
The triangular-shaped strange lights, similar to tr-3b, were filmed near a ranch in Catarina, Texas, around 8:45 p.m. The day 1-24-18. This catarina texas triangular UFO has not yet been explained. The information about this sighting is filtered in the deep web and everything suggests that it is a kind of secret military prototype similar to the tr-3b of the 90s but others say no, that it is an alien artifact
Weird Lights Caught Over Downtown Milwaukee By Fox 6 News. February 27, 2018
Weird Lights Caught Over Downtown Milwaukee By Fox 6 News. February 27, 2018
Is this is just another case of the government attempting to hide another UFO encounter by putting out some ridiculous explanation for it? As FOX News claims this was just a huge flock of seagulls.
Amazing UFO sighting filmed over Vero Beach, Florida 27-Jan-2015 + UPDATE
Amazing UFO sighting filmed over Vero Beach, Florida 27-Jan-2015 + UPDATE
Here’s this interesting UFO video that was recorded from Vero Beach, a city in Indian River County, Florida. This was filmed on Tuesday, 27th January 2015.
Check out this amazing piece of footage here:
And here are some interesting comments from Youtube:
What do you think about this sighting? Please leave your comments below!
A lot of people are contacting me and reporting more sighting from this area. It looks like Vero Beach recently became a very popular UFO hotspot!
Here’s one report from Mark, he had a sighting on 31st January, four days after the video above was recorded:
A constant bright orange dot in the southwest that would occasionally drift sideways to the west. At first, I thought it was a night launch – they’re kinda common around here – but launches typically are seen to the north. This was to the southwest. The color and brightness was reminiscent of a launch, but it was more constant, no flicker to it.. It seemed to stay at the same altitude, but moved sideways a couple of times, slowly, to the west.. I watched it for about a minute or two, and it faded out.
When I got home, I posted on Facebook ‘Did anyone else see that’? but got no responses. The thought crossed my mind that it could be a Chinese lantern drifting in the wind, but it seemed too high and too bright. I wouldn’t have reported this, had I not just now seen the January 25th report of similar sightings in the same town. Thanks.
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Another interesting photo was taken in the same place on Tuesday, 3rd February 2015:
NASA doubted the discovery of traces of bacteria on Mars
NASA doubted the discovery of traces of bacteria on Mars
Mysterious microscopic structures similar to bacteria found recently by the Curiosity rover appeared as a result of the drying out of lakes or the movement of water currents, rather than were left by extraterrestrial organisms.
“When we looked at these structures and got more detailed photos of them, we realized that they really look like wands, but they do not have a round but angular shape. In other words, they are more like crystals than traces of microbial activity “Said Ashwin Vasavada, head of Mission Curiosity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, USA.
In mid-December this year Curiosity rover stopped for a few days at one of the points on the surface of the Vera Rubin ridge, located on the slopes of Mount Sharp. It is composed of hematite, a mineral, presumably created as a result of chemical processes in the waters of hot springs and volcanic lakes of Mars.
During this parking, the MAHLI camera, installed in the rover’s arm, received several photographs of nearby stones and the surface of Mars, which attracted the attention of the British planetologist Barry DiGregorio, a proponent of the theory that there had once been life on the surface of the red planet .
The British researcher found on one of these photographs dark undulating structures, similar in shape to the worms or the fossilized traces of colonies of microbes, which geologists often find in the oldest rocks of the Earth. In his opinion, such “fossils” could hardly have appeared on Mars abiogenic way.
This discovery, as Vasavad noted at the time, caused the scientific team of the mission to stop and deploy the rover to re-study these unusual structures. After that, the fourth rover continued its journey to the top of Mount Sharp, and discovered several other interesting geological formations in January and February that clarified the nature of its December find.
Not far from the habitat of these “bacteria”, according to the representative of NASA, the rover managed to find dark tubercles, similar to the deposits of gypsum, appearing on the bottom of the lakes on Earth at the moment when they completely dry up. In the neighborhood with these hillocks, as geologists suggested, crystals could also be formed from other salts and compounds. Later, some of these crystals could “overgrow” sediments of other sedimentary rocks that did not have a crystalline structure, resulting in those deposits similar to bacteria that were found on the Vera Rubin ridge. The crystals themselves could later be washed with water, which is why the nature of these bizarre “sticks” caused so much controversy among scientists.
It is not yet clear when and how these crystals were formed. As the scientists note, they could have been born as at the bottom of a drying lake in those epochs when the Martian water reserves began to come to an end, and in the relatively “wet” period of its life in the deep layers of sediments on the lake bottom, where the water got worse all the time “overgrowth” of the bottom of the reservoir.
The scientific team Curiosity hopes that this mystery will be solved in the coming months and years, if the rover will find similar structures in other regions of the crater Gail.
Aliens or Ancient Water? Weird Mars Rock Dents Raise Theories On Extraterrestrial Life Again
Aliens or Ancient Water? Weird Mars Rock Dents Raise Theories On Extraterrestrial Life Again
Dana Dovey
Last month, an exploratory rover on Mars sent photos back to Earth of strange rock indentations on the Red Planet. NASA said the markings were evidence of ancient water crystals. One scientist, however, believes the formations are proof of ancient alien life in the form of fossilized impressions or drag marks.
In August 2012, Curiosity, a car-sized space exploration vehicle, landed on the surface of Mars. The rover’s mission was to take photographs of the Martian surface and send them back to Earth for further analysis. Earlier this year, NASA received images from Curiosity of strange rock formations from an area of Mars called the Vera Rubin Ridge. The photographs showed small indentations on the rock that look similar to ancient crystals found on Earth.
“These shapes are characteristic of gypsum crystals," said Sanjeev Gupta, a Curiosity science-team member at Imperial College, London, according to NASA. "These can form when salts become concentrated in water, such as in an evaporating lake."
Barry E. DiGregorio, an honorary research fellow at the Buckingham Center for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham, disagrees with that assessment. In an email to Newsweek, the veteran astrobiologist explained how the indentations may instead be evidence of ancient marine activity on Mars, dating to a time when the planet had several lakes billions of years ago. Together with two other colleagues, DiGregorio is preparing a scientific paper on the subject.
The markings in the rocks are only about the size of a sesame seed.
The Vera Rubin Ridge, located on Mount Sharp, stands out as an “erosion-resistant band,” according to NASA. The marks in the photos are tiny, about the size of a sesame seed. According to Curiosity Project scientist Ashwin Vasavada, the tiny dents are unique and may be evidence of saltwater on the Red Planet, whereas most past evidence of water on Mars suggested that it was relatively fresh, nonsalty water.
"In either scenario, these crystals are a new type of evidence that builds the story of persistent water and a long-lived habitable environment on Mars," Vasavada said.
DiGregorio says it's unlikely that the formations are water crystals. The markings, he says, look more like ancient marine trace fossil activity on Earth, such as ancient footprints or drag marks, than they do crystals. DiGregorio plans to reveal further supporting evidence for this hypothesis in a report to be published within the next two months.
'Truth' about the swirling 'alien UFO fleet' caught on TV which left presenters speechless
'Truth' about the swirling 'alien UFO fleet' caught on TV which left presenters speechless
A BIZARRE swarm of swirling "UFOs" filmed on live TV left presenters and viewers baffled. The sight was inadvertently filmed by TV cameras in the background for US TV station Fox 6 News as a news bulletin was broadcast showing the night time skyline in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I’m actually, er… It’s getting weirder by the second. They’re sticking around.
Fox 6 News presenter
One person posted on YouTube: “Saying there are no aliens in the universe is like scooping a cup of water out of the ocean and saying there is no fish.
“Open your minds.”
Another said: “Rapid acceleration, deceleration, direction changes and they're emitting light."
However, the case appears to have been solved as nothing more than a flock of seagulls and a camera anomaly.
Scores of online debunkers came forward to explain what was happening.
In a debate about the video on website Reddit users gave a more rational explanation for the phenomenon.
One user posted: “They are seagulls, they look funny because the shutter speed of the camera is lower longer than the frame rate (to help brighten the night shot), so it give the funny trail effect,” read the comment.
“If you notice, the cars on the highway also have the same trailing effect that the seagulls have."
Even UFO believer Tyler Glockner, of YouTube channel Secureteam10, who has put forward an array of videos as proof of alien UFOs, accepted in a video he made that they were birds.
Despite the consensus this was not an alien visitation, many people refused to accept they were birds.
Mr Glockner even came under fire from his own followers for making the claim.
One said: "It's like a cover up video. You have no idea it is birds and you are playing it down."
Another said: "This guy is quick to shout aliens for every single video or how he scoffs at every official explanation then the recent video comes out that is definitely unidentified and he says its birds!"
Dark U-Shape UFO Over Coimbra, Portugal On March 5, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Dark U-Shape UFO Over Coimbra, Portugal On March 5, 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 5, 2018
Location of sighting: Coimbra, Portugal
Source: MUFON #90598 This U-shaped UFO is beyond rare! Often disks or spheres are seen, but this rare UFO popped up over Portugal this week. Lucky for us, a person was recording the sky and accidentally caught the UFO as it was slowly passing by. Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
During the video recording for time lapse I noticed that something crossed the sky coming from south to north-it has a U shape. I cut part of the video for submission.
Sphere UFO Found On Google Earth Map, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Sphere UFO Found On Google Earth Map, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 7, 2018
Location of sighting: East Lake George, New York, USA Source: MUFON #90613 Here is a UFO orb found on Google Earth today. The eyewitness found it at Lake George, New York. Many past UFO reports describe round sphere UFOs and it does seem to be the most common shape of UFOs around the world. Also know, all of the UFOs that I have reported on this site found on Google Earth have been deleted, so count on this one being up for only a few months before Google finds it. Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
I found pictures of this UFO on Google Earth street view. East side of Lake George by the radio tower near Shelvin rock
Strange Orange Glow spotted in the skies over Clearfield, Utah and Middlesbrough, UK
Strange Orange Glow spotted in the skies over Clearfield, Utah and Middlesbrough, UK
More and more people around the world are witnessing a strange glow in the night skies. The glow varies from orange to purple and nobody knows where it comes from.
Here are two witness reports including videos showing the strange orange glow in the night sky.
On March 3, 2018 at about 12.55 am coming home from work Nicodimus Visser saw a very strange glow in the sky. He said “I never saw a sky looking that in Clearfield or anywhere in my life.”
Nicodimus quickly made a video of the strange phenomenon and went to look for the source of the glow but found nothing what could explain the glow.
Then he thought maybe there was a huge fire, but there was no fire otherwise it would be in the news and he could have smelled it.
Several days later on March 6, 2018 the same orange glow has been spotted over Middlesbrough, England.
According to Craig Alderton who has filmed the sky phenomenon there was no fire and the glow was absolutely not coming from the street lights, moreover the glow keeps pulsating in the sky.
Physicist Michio Kaku: We May Soon Meet Aliens, But To Them, Were Not More Than ‘Forest Animals’
Physicist Michio Kaku: We May Soon Meet Aliens, But To Them, Were Not More Than ‘Forest Animals’
The American theoretical physics professor Michio Kaku, famous for the revolutionary string theory has said that before 2100 we will find alien life exists, despite the fact that to aliens, humans are nothing more than forest animals.
Still, Kaku explained, “For the most part, the aliens are not going to be interested in us because we’re so arrogant to believe that we have something to offer them.”
Whether or not we are alone in the universe is one of the most discussed topics on Earth. Is there extraterrestrial life, or are we alone in the vast universe?
For American physicist Michio Kaku there is no doubt that there is alien life, and he even believes that we will soon establish contact with beings from another world.
The professor of theoretical physics at The City College in New York has said during a question session on Redditthat before the year 2010 we will get in touch with an alien civilization.
We will find out about alien life, according to Kaku, by listening to radio communications.
Although communicating with them will be more complicated, “since they could be dozens of light-years away,” says Kaku.
Even so, these communications will allow us, in Kaku’s words, to decipher their language and understand their level of technology.
“Let me stick my neck out. I personally feel that within this century, we will make contact with an alien civilization, by listening in on their radio communications. But talking to them will be difficult since they could be tens of light years away. So, in the meantime, we must decipher their language to understand their level of technology. Are they Type I, II, or III??? [These represent three categories in the Kardashev scale, measuring technological achievement in civilizations based on their level of energy use for communication.] And what are their intentions. Are they expansive and aggressive, or peaceful.”
Kaku added, “Another possibility is that they land on the White House lawn and announce their existence. But I think that is unlikely since we would be like forest animals to them, i.e. not worth communicating with.”
Despite Kaku’s opinion, different researchers and futurists have spoken out about when they think we’ll finally meet E.T.
Shutterstock
Some experts claim we’ll find out about alien life in the next 1,500 years, while others like Seth Shostak said that we could encounter intelligent alienlife as soon as 2,040; “By 2040 or so, astronomers will have scanned enough star systems to give themselves a great shot of discovering alien-produced electromagnetic signals.”
“Instead of looking at a few thousand-star systems, which is the tally so far, we will have looked at maybe million-star systems” 24 years from now, Shostak said. “A million might be the right number to find something.”
Meanwhile, famous British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warns that humans should not respond to presumed signals coming from space since aliens could represent a danger to humanity.
When asked how much more advanced an alien civilization might be morally and philosophically, Kaku responded on Reddit by saying:
“I get asked if the aliens are evil and want to destroy us. Maybe, but I think in the main they will be peaceful because they have had thousands of years to resolve sectarian, fundamentalist, nationalist questions. However, they still might be dangerous if they simply don’t care about us and we get in the way. In War of the Worlds, the aliens did not hate us. We were simply in the way. In the same way that a developer is a threat to forest animals because he can pave the first, the danger there is from someone who sees that we are just in the way. But for the most part, I think they will be peaceful, but view us like we view forest animals.”
Alien hunters believe that a mysterious object spotted in Antarctica through Google Earth is a crashed UFO. Is this finally the proof that we need to confirm that aliens exist?
( SecureTeam1 | YouTube )
A mysterious object spotted on Google Earth is apparently a UFO that crash landed in Antarctica, according to a YouTube channel of alien hunters.
Is this finally the proof that we need to confirm that aliens exist? Or is it nothing more than conspiracy theories trying to make something out of nothing?
UFO Crash Or Natural Phenomenon?
On first look, the mysterious object spotted in Antarctica certainly looks unnatural, with an estimated length of about 63 meters. With its narrow shape and a nearly perfect symmetrical trail of snow that is over 3,000 feet long behind it, it is easy to see why alien hunters would think that this is an alien spacecraft that crashed into the South Georgia Island, located in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
"It appears to be some sort of massive elongated or cigar-shaped object that at some point — and we don't know when — came to a screeching halt in the snow," said the hosts of a YouTube video uploaded by the SecureTeam10 channel.
Is the object really an alien spaceship, and is this proof of alien life once again being covered up?
Not everybody is convinced. Typing in the coordinates on the Google Earth website to take a look at a zoomed-out image of the object, it appears that the trail left behind by the supposed UFO leads back to a mountain, at the foot of which lies a significant amount of disturbed snow.
Richard Waller, a geologist from Keele University, believes that the object is the result of a large avalanche that occurred at the nearby mountain, echoing the explanations left behind by several users on SecureTeam10's video.
"Part of a hanging glacier appears to have collapsed, you can see the avalanche debris at the foot of the slope, and this could be a large block of ice that has travelled further as a consequence," Waller noted.
The First Alien Sighting Of 2018
The mysterious object in Antarctica is not the first widely reported UFO sighting this year. That distinction goes to a UFO in Mexico that was spotted in mid-January, when a woman recorded footage of a strangely-shaped object hovering vertically in the air.
However, unlike the supposed Antarctica UFO that may be explained by various scientific possibilities, the nature of the vertical UFO remains unknown. UFO expert Pedro Ramirez, meanwhile, attributed the recent increase in alien sightings to the rocket launches of NASA and SpaceX. Aliens are monitoring Earth because they have become concerned over our activity, Ramirez claimed.
For the most part, stars in our Milky Way galaxy move in a more or less orderly way. But some stars are runaways.
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a cloud in space where new stars are forming – called 30 Doradus – aka the Tarantula Nebula. The enlarged inset shows a star that appears to have been kicked out of the nebula. In the inset, an arrow points to the stellar runaway and a dashed arrow to its presumed direction of motion. Read more about this image from NASA.
The sun and all of the Milky Way’s stars are moving in orbit around the center of our galaxy. It’s more or less orderly, but there are local movements within this general stream of stars, too. In recent decades, astronomers have identified some Milky Way stars that are moving faster than expected, or in a direction that seems unusual. They use the term runaway star to describe these renegades.
Stars are born in clouds of gas and dust. Multiple stars are born from a single cloud, and so many Milky Way stars move through space in loose associations, or more tightly bound open star clusters. By tracking the motions of a runaway star, astronomers can sometimes see which stellar association it once belonged to, before something happened to kick the star into fast motion, on a path through space different from its original cluster or association.
Astronomers point to two possible mechanisms for runaway stars:
The first involves two binary star systems – two systems, each containing two stars – that pass close to each other. The encounter can disrupt both systems, so that one or more stars are ejected at relatively high speeds.
The second involves a supernova explosion in a multiple star system. These powerful explosions can propel associated stars that didn’t explode along new paths, at much-higher speeds.
One runaway star is GD 50, a white dwarf star with a bit more mass than our sun, but smaller than the Earth. A dime as dense as GD 50 would weigh 2,600 pounds (~1,200 kilos). GD 50 is located in our sky in the direction of the constellation Eridanus the River. But, around 2009, astronomers who’d been studying this star found that it moves through space in the same direction and at the same speed as the Pleiades star cluster, which is located not far from Eridanus on the sky’s dome. GD 50 is also about the same age as stars in the Pleiades. These astronomers concluded that GD 50 was born in the Pleiades, then flung out, possibly after passing too close to another star.
Another example of runaway stars is the case of AE Aurigae, 53 Arietis and Mu Columbae. They’re all moving away from each other at velocities of over 100 km/s (for comparison, our sun moves through the Milky Way at only about 20 km/s faster than the local average). Tracing their motions backwards on the sky’s dome, astronomers can see that – about 2 million years ago – the paths of these stars intersected near the Orion Nebula. There is a great loop or bubble of gas – called Barnard’s Loop – surrounding Orion’s three prominent Belt stars. Barnard’s Loop may be the remnant of the supernova that launched these stars as runaway stars.
Four runaway stars plowing through regions of dense interstellar gas and creating bright bow waves and trailing tails of glowing gas. The stars in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope images are among 14 young runaway stars spotted by the Advanced Camera for Surveys between October 2005 and July 2006.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Bottom line:Runaway stars move apart from the general stream of stars in our Milky Way. They might have been kicked from their original star clusters by encounters between two pairs of binary stars, or by a supernova explosion.
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION, THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLDER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION, THOUSANDS OF YEARS OLDER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
New Dates for Egypt’s Pharaohs
Just when did Egyptian pharaohs such as King Tut and Rameses II rule? Historians have heatedly debated the exact dates. Now a radiocarbon study concludes that much of the assumed chronology was right, though it corrects some controversial dates and may overturn a few pet theories.
“This is an extremely important piece of research that shows clearly that historical dating methods and radiocarbon dates are compatible for ancient Egypt,” says Kate Spence, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Egyptian records, such as the writings of the 3rd century B.C.E. historian Manetho and inscriptions found at key sites such as Saqqara and Karnak, provide what are called “floating chronologies” because they are internally consistent but not anchored to absolute dates. On the other hand, they sometimes refer to astronomical events whose dates can be calculated today. Thus, scholars are confident that they are not wildly off the mark. But it’s difficult to be precise. For example, the first known pyramid, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, was built as a tomb for King Djoser, and historians usually put the beginning of his reign between 2667 and 2592 B.C.E. But one recent paper by Spence, based on astronomical calculations, put it as much as 75 years later. Radiocarbon dating has been too imprecise to resolve these contradictions because in this period it usually has error ranges of between 100 and 200 years.
A team led by Christopher Bronk Ramsey of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom adopted a two-pronged strategy to get around radiocarbon’s limitations. First, researchers searched museum collections around the world for plant remains directly associated with the reigns of particular kings or periods, often using offerings from pyramids where the kings were buried. The 211 plant samples were radiocarbon dated.
Second, the team used a mathematical modeling approach called Bayesian statistics to compare the patterns in the radiocarbon and historical dates and come up with the most likely correlation between them. The researchers constructed a separate model for each of the three main Egyptian periods: Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. This allowed them to increase the precision of radiocarbon dating of each period to 76, 53, and 24 years, respectively.
As the researchers will report in tomorrow’s issue of Science, they found that the Old Kingdom, which kicked off with Djoser’s reign, began between 2691 and 2625 B.C.E. The New Kingdom, which starts with the reign of Ahmose, began between about 1570 and 1544 B.C.E. New Kingdom pharoah Rameses II, considered the greatest of the Egyptian kings by historians, clocks in between 1297 and 1273 B.C.E., and King Tut between 1353 to 1331 B.C.E. The dating ranges are earlier than some historians had previously proposed. For example, in a 2000 Nature paper, Spence argued, based on the astronomical alignments of Egyptian pyramids, that Djoser’s reign was somewhat later. “I am more than happy to accept” the new results, Spence says, adding that the Old Kingdom dating is “particularly important” because “this is the first time there has been anything firm to which to pin our historical relative chronologies.”
Yet the new study does not resolve all of the outstanding issues. In a Perspectiveaccompanying the paper, archaeologist Hendrik Bruins of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel points out that one major controversy remains unresolved: the timing of the massive eruption of the volcanic island of Thera in the Aegean Sea, which transformed the history of the eastern Mediterranean and has important implications for understanding the relationship between Egypt and the Minoans, another powerful culture of the time. Previous radiocarbon dating suggests that the eruption took place at least 100 years before the New Kingdom began, which the new dating puts at no earlier than 1570 B.C.E. But radiocarbon and historical dating by University of Vienna archaeologist Manfred Bietak’s team at Tell el-Dab’a in Egypt has concluded that the Thera eruption took place during the New Kingdom era.
Bietak says that although the new study is a “serious and innovative approach,” the team’s need to use Bayesian statistics to narrow its radiocarbon date ranges “expose[s] the weakness of radiocarbon chronology.” But Sturt Manning, an archaeologist at Cornell University, says that the field must now accept that “there is something wrong” with the stratigraphy and dating of the site of Tell el-Dab’a rather than the chronology as a whole.
Scorching Saturn-Size World Has 3 Times the Water of Ringed Planet
Scorching Saturn-Size World Has 3 Times the Water of Ringed Planet
By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor
The Saturn-size planet WASP-39b orbits close to its parent star about 700 light-years from Earth. New research reveals a surprising amount of water in its atmosphere.
Credit: G. Bacon (STScI)/NASA/ESA
A Saturn-size gas giant exoplanet orbiting close to its star has three times as much water in its atmosphere as Saturn itself, researchers have found. The surprising find will improve our understanding of where planets form around a star, NASA officials said in a statement.
No one expected to see so much water on the planet, called WASP-39b, because it is a "hot Saturn" — a Saturn-size planet that is extremely close to its parent star. WASP-39b is roasting away at 0.05 Earth-sun distances (astronomical units) from its sun-like star. That's about eight times closer than Mercury is to our own sun in the solar system, or 20 times closer than the Earth is to the sun.
WASP-39b is so close to its star that the planet is tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet is always facing the star. That daytime side is a blazing 1,430 degrees Fahrenheit (777 degrees Celsius), NASA officials said. However, winds transport much of that heat to the nightside of the planet, meaning that WASP-39b is almost as hot on the nightside as it is on the dayside. (Despite its "hot Saturn" moniker WASP-39b does not have rings like Saturn does. [The Most Intriguing Alien Planet Discoveries of 2017]
Despite these challenging conditions, water does persist on the planet, according to new data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The water in WASP-39b's atmosphere suggests that the planet must have formed farther away from its parent star that it currently is located, where a greater amount of icy material was available. It has "an interesting evolutionary history," NASA officials said — as it moved closer to its star, it could have disturbed (or even destroyed) other planetary objects.
Astronomers examined data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to learn about the atmosphere of the Saturn-size planet WASP-39b, getting the most complete spectrum of its atmosphere currently technologically possible. The researchers found a surprising amount of water in the planet's atmosphere — three times as much as on Saturn.
Credit: G. Bacon and A. Field (STScI)/H. Wakeford (STScI/Univ. of Exeter)/NASA/ESA
"We need to look outward so we can understand our own solar system," Hannah Wakeford, lead author on the new work, said in the statement. "But exoplanets are showing us that planet formation is more complicated and more confusing than we thought it was. And that's fantastic." Wakeford has joint appointments as a fellow with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and as an astrophysicist with the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom.
Wakeford's team used the two space telescopes to gaze at WASP-39b, which is about 700 light-years away from Earth. They discovered the water by looking at the starlight filtering through the planet's atmosphere and identifying water vapor's signature spectrum.
"WASP-39b shows [that] exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system," David Sing, co-author on the new work and an associate professor in astrophysics at the University of Exeter, said in the statement. "Hopefully, this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve."
The scientists hope to use the James Webb Space Telescope, which is slated to launch in 2019, to get more data about carbon in the planet's atmosphere. (Hubble cannot spot the carbon, because that element absorbs light at longer, infrared wavelengths, beyond Hubble's capabilities.) When scientists know the amount of carbon and oxygen in the planet's atmosphere, this will yield more information about WASP-39b's origins, the scientists said.
The new work was detailed in The Astronomical Journal.
WETENSCHAPEen planeet buiten ons zonnestelsel blijkt veel meer water te bevatten dan gedacht. Het gaat om een exoplaneet op een afstand van 700 lichtjaar die qua grootte vergelijkbaar is met Saturnus. Volgens de onderzoekers betekent dit dat exoplaneten heel andere samenstellingen kunnen hebben dan de hemellichamen uit ons eigen zonnestelsel.
De astronomen baseren zich op gegevens afkomstig van de Hubble- en Spitzer-ruimtetelescoop, die het optisch spectrum van de exoplaneet WASP-39b in kaart brachten via metingen met spectrografen. Daaruit blijkt dat de atmosfeer van de gasreus opvallend veel water herbergt, namelijk drie keer zoveel als Saturnus.
Deze vondst is opmerkelijk, omdat WASP-39b erg dicht rond zijn ster cirkelt. De afstand tussen de ster en de exoplaneet is slechts een achtste deel van de afstand tussen onze zon en Mercurius, terwijl de planeet in slechts vier dagen zijn baan om de ster voltooit. De planeet kent een zogenaamde gebonden rotatie. Altijd is dezelfde zijde van de planeet naar de ster gericht, waardoor de temperatuur kan oplopen tot ongeveer 750 graden Celsius.
NASA
Door de korte afstand staat de planeet te boek als een ‘hete Saturnus’, waardoor niet werd verwacht dat relatief grote hoeveelheden water in de atmosfeer zouden worden gedetecteerd. De onderzoekers hadden wel verwacht waterdamp te vinden, maar niet in zulke hoeveelheden. Op basis daarvan menen ze dat de atmosfeer een grote hoeveelheid zwaardere elementen moet bevatten.
Dat betekent dat de planeet vermoedelijk ooit is gebombardeerd door ijsachtig materiaal, dat is opgehoopt in de atmosfeer. Dit is volgens de onderzoekers alleen mogelijk geweest als WASP-39b is ontstaan op een veel grotere afstand van zijn ster, wat dan weer impliceert dat de zou zijn ‘gemigreerd’ door het bewuste planetenstelsel. Voor de astronomen betekent dit dat de vorming van planeten veel complexer en verwarrender is dan tot nu toe werd aangenomen.
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MYSTERIEUS OBJECT BOVEN EINDHOVEN, NEDERLAND
MYSTERIEUS OBJECT BOVEN EINDHOVEN, NEDERLAND
Mensen die naar de lucht kijken, zien soms dingen waar hun mond van openvalt en die dikwijls moeilijk zijn te geloven door anderen.
Zo ook in Eindhoven, waar een dame recentelijk op een vroege zondagochtend vanuit haar woning op de zesde verdieping naar buiten keek.
Vaak hebben mensen die een bijzondere waarneming doen te maken met allerlei minder prettige zaken. Ze hebben regelmatig het gevoel dat ze zich moeten verdedigen, zoals onder andere de volgende lezer schrijft (dank!):
Met veel interesse heb ik het artikel van Josie Zwinenberg over haar ontmoeting met een Ufo gelezen en begrijp volkomen haar steeds weer te moeten uitleggen en vooral te verdedigen ervaring.
Die heb ik namelijk enige jaren geleden ook gehad en vooral haar verklaring over de felle lichten komt mij héél bekend voor.
Ook ik heb er met diverse mensen over gesproken en toch hun scepsis ervaren, terwijl ik 100% zéker weet wat ik gezien heb!!
Bovenstaande is een steeds weerkerend thema van mensen die een buitengewone ervaring hebben gehad en vervolgens het gevoel krijgen alsof ze een beetje alleen op de wereld zijn omdat het toch voor velen een niet te begrijpen fenomeen is.
En als ze iets niets begrijpen, dan is de beste tactiek meestal om maar net te doen alsof het niet bestaat, met als gevolg dat er veel onbegrepen mensen rondlopen.
Iets dergelijks is ook een beetje het geval met een dame die op de zesde etage van een flat in Eindhoven woont en het volgende schrijft:
Ik had de gordijnen open en was al wakker, het was zondagmorgen 25 februari 2018. De tijd was 6.40 uur en de horizon begon op te lichten maar het was nog donker boven de horizon en zeker boven de hoge bomen waar ik over uitkijk.
Opeens kwam er vanaf het Zuiden of misschien eerder van het Zuid-Westen een groot triangle-, boomerang-, V-shaped object overvliegen, in een boog, over de hoge bomen naar het Oosten toe.
Het was erg groot, maar het ging als een speer, ik denk dat alles niet langer heeft geduurd dan 2 seconden. Maar het was heel duidelijk zichtbaar en ik denk dat het ook best wel hoog zat, maar het kwam toch in een grote boog en vervolgens verdween het in rechte baan naar het Oosten.
Het maakte geen geluid, het was geen vliegtuig of een donkere Stealth. Het had geen ronde lichten, rode knipperende lichten of wat dan ook waarvan je zou kunnen denken dat het een vliegtuig had kunnen zijn .
De V-shape was daarentegen helemaal blauw verlicht. Net zoals een lichtreclame, van dat hele lichtblauwe licht. Daaromheen zat duidelijk een witte verlichtte omlijning. Het zag er ook vrij plat uit. Maar dat kan gezichtsbedrog zijn. Het ging zo vreselijk snel en ik ben er erg van geschrokken omdat ik nog nooit zoiets dergelijks heb gezien.
Ik ben er ook nooit mee bezig geweest. Na het incident ben ik gaan zoeken op internet of er dergelijke sightings geweest zijn. Er zijn foto's van V-shaped objecten maar die zijn meestal zwart of hebben ronde lichten. Dit helemaal niet! Het was een rare gewaarwording.
Ik heb het direct dezelfde dag gemeld op UFO meldpunt Nederland, moest een schets online maken en heb dat ook gedaan. Ik heb niets terug gehoord.
Tot op heden heb ik geen idee wat dit geweest zou kunnen zijn. Ik weet wel wat ik gezien heb. Dat kun je vertellen, maar wie gelooft het. Dankjewel dat ik mijn waarneming heb kunnen overbrengen. De schets is simpel en de kleur blauw is niet helemaal zoals ie was, maar misschien helpt het bij de uitleg.
Er zijn eerdere waarnemingen geweest van deze hele bijzondere vorm en een heel mooi voorbeeld daarvan is een waarneming uit 2015.
Een dame zit aan boord van een vliegtuig en vertelt het volgende verhaal:
Op woensdag 4 juni 2015 rond 16.45 zat ik aan boord van Avianca vlucht O66302, onderweg van Sao Paulo in Brazilië naar Recife.
Het vliegtuig was net opgestegen en ik zat aan de rechterkant van het toestel, op stoel 24K. Ik keek uit het raam en zag een zwart object, klein en het had de vorm van een boemerang. Het had geen uitsteeksels, geen lichten, geen zichtbare aandrijving zoals een turbine of propellers en het vloog op dezelfde hoogte als het vliegtuig.
Aan de hand van haar gedetailleerde beschrijving is de volgende afbeelding gemaakt die laat zien wat zij die dag zag vanuit het vliegtuigraam.
Door de jaren heen zijn er talloze meldingen geweest van mensen die een object hebben waargenomen in de vorm van een V of een boemerang.
Aangezien de waarneming in Eindhoven op een zondagmorgen vroeg was, zullen er waarschijnlijk niet veel mensen zijn geweest die dit hebben gezien. Mochten die er toch zijn, laat het ons weten.
Evidence of life on Mars is being covered up by Nasa, according to a researcher Barry DiGregorio at a Buckingham University.
The agency’s space explorer, the Curiosity rover, has snapped what may be trace fossils created by soft-bodied creatures on the red planet, he says.
An upcoming 'bombshell' report will reveal how Nasa is aware of the find and has chosen to keep it hidden from the public, the scientist claims.
The controversial scientist believes the space agency could be ignoring the find because of its plans for a manned mission in the 2030s, when astronauts will explore Mars in more depth.
However, according to Nasa, the shapes captured in images from Mars are simply rock crystals that are currently undergoing analysis.
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Evidence of life on Mars is being covered up by Nasa, according to a researcher at a Buckingham University. The agency’s space explorer, the Curiosity rover, has snapped what may be trace fossils on the red planet, he says. Pictured are the alleged trace fossils
The findings were made by Barry DiGregorio, an honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham who specialises in studies of microscopic life found in the soil of our planet.
Images beamed back from Mars by Curiosity appear to show patterns similar to Ordovician trace fossils Dr DiGregorio has photographed here on Earth, he says.
Trace fossils are made by animals going about their lives, like footprints, burrows and waste matter, rather than the remains of the creatures themselves.
Ordovician fossils are found in a geological layer spanning 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 million years ago.
Dr DiGregorio Days fossils on Mars represent signs of soft bodied creatures which once roamed its surface.
Speaking to the Daily Express, he said: 'If not trace fossils, what other geological explanations will Nasa come up with?
Trace fossils are made by animals going about their lives, like footprints, burrows and waste matter, rather than the remains of the creatures themselves. This image shows a trace fossil from the Logan Formation, found in east-central Ohio and parts of western West Virginia
Dr DiGregorio says fossils on Mars represent signs of soft bodied creatures which once roamed its surface. This image shows trackways from a slug-like animal, from the Cambrian, found in Blackberry Hill, central Wisconsin
This image shows burrows produced by crustaceans from the Middle Jurassic, found in Makhtesh Qatan, southern Israel
This image shows Ophiomorpha and Thalassinoides trace fossils produced by crustaceans from the Late Miocene, found at Camacho formatio in Colonia Department, Uruguay.
'Nasa has turned its back on trying to get the data on this. The order came down from HQ that they should move the rover on to the next point.
'They didn't feel it was important enough to look at, I thought that was very odd, despite the fact Gale Crater was host to probably a series of lakes for billions and billions of years.
'We're talking about something that might have been equivalent to the Ordovician period on Earth.'
The findings were made by Barry DiGregorio, an honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham. This image shows Dr DiGregorio (right) with Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong (left)
Dr DiGregorio is not alone in his belief of evidence of life on Mars.
In recent weeks, a European space probe swung into position around Mars in preparation to analyse its atmosphere for possible signs of life.
The European Space Agency said on Wednesday, February 21, its Trace Gas Orbiter successfully performed a delicate manoeuvre known as aerobraking that involved dipping into the red planet's upper atmosphere to slow the probe.
The agency says the orbiter will start looking for trace gases such as methane, which can result from biological or geological activity, in April.
It will also search for ice that could help future Mars landings.
A Nasa-made radio on board will also help relay signals from US rovers on the surface back to Earth.
Europe plans to land its own rover on Mars in 2021. A European test lander crashed on the surface of Mars in 2016.
Dr DiGregorio says the agency’s space explorer, the Curiosity rover, has snapped what may be trace fossils on the red planet
In January 2018, Nasa announced that its Curiosity rover had spotted a set of mysterious ‘stick-like figures’ on the red planet. The surface of the Martian rock target in this stereo, close-up image includes small hollows with a 'swallowtail' shape characteristic of gypsum crystals
The shapes left behind will be familiar to geologists who have studied gypsum crystals formed in drying lakes on Earth. This image shows a mineral vein with bright and dark portions that distinguishes this Martian rock investigated near the upper edge of Vera Rubin Ridge
WHAT ARE THE TINY CRYSTAL SHAPES FOUND ON MARS?
In January 2018, Nasa announced that its Curiosity rover had spotted a set of mysterious ‘stick-like figures’ on the red planet.
In a photo shared to the rover’s Twitter account that week, the space agency gave its followersa look at the unusual formations found on the face of a Martian rock.
The images were captured during the rover’s ‘working holiday’ at the end of December 2017.
On New Year’s Eve, Curiosity revisited an ‘interesting’ site as part of its activity plan, to get a closer look what Nasa says are some ‘very peculiar targets.’
It’s unclear what exactly created the quarter-inch-long ‘stick-figures,’ though the space agency says they could be crystals or minerals left in the gaps where crystals dissolved.
The shapes left behind will be familiar to geologists who have studied gypsum crystals formed in drying lakes on Earth.
Further inspection of similar features by the rover elsewhere on Mars may resolve the timing of when the crystal-shaped features formed, relative to when layers of sediment accumulated around them.
Another uncertainty is whether the original mineral that crystallised into these shapes remains in them or was subsequently dissolved away and replaced by something else.
Answers may point to evidence of a drying lake or to groundwater that flowed through the sediment after it became cemented into rock.The Trace Gas Orbiter launched in March 2016 with the ill-fated Shiaparelli Demonstrator Module aboard a Proton rocket.
The Trace Gas Orbiter launched in March 2016 with the ill-fated Shiaparelli Demonstrator Module aboard a Proton rocket.
The pair arrived at the red planet in October of that year – but, just days before reaching the atmosphere, Shiaparelli was ejected toward Mars, ESA says.
The test lander entered Mars’ atmosphere at 21,000 km/h, and began to decelerate using aerobraking and a parachute.
But, due to technical problems, Shiaparelli’s braking thrusters and on-ground systems activated early, as though it had already landed, despite still being 3.7 kilometers above the surface.
The Trace Gas Orbiter, however, managed to successfully make it to its destination.
Dr DiGregorio is not alone in his belief of evidence of life on Mars. In recent weeks, a European space probe swung into position around Mars in preparation to analyse its atmosphere for possible signs of life
The craft was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Mars in October 2016, and performed a series of maneuvers in January 2017 to shift its angle of travel so it can get the best view of Mars.
It then began its aerobraking phase in March 2017, to slowly bring it down to a 400-km altitude orbit so it can begin its scientific mission in April of this year.
According to ESA, the Trace Gas Orbiter’s mission will run for roughly two years, during which it will observe the Martian atmosphere in search of gases that could be of ‘biological importance.’
And, its instruments will gather measurements to gain better understanding of the location and nature of these sources.
The craft will continue to relay information for the 2020 ExoMars rover mission until the end of 2022, ESA says.
WAS MARS EVER HOME TO LIQUID WATER?
Evidence of water on Mars dates back to the Mariner 9 mission, which arrived in 1971. It revealed clues of water erosion in river beds and canyons as well as weather fronts and fogs.
Viking orbiters that followed caused a revolution in our ideas about water on Mars by showing how floods broke through dams and carved deep valleys.
Mars is currently in the middle of an ice age, and before this study, scientists believed liquid water could not exist on its surface.
In June 2013, Curiosity found powerful evidence that water good enough to drink once flowed on Mars.
In September of the same year, the first scoop of soil analysed by Curiosity revealed that fine materials on the surface of the planet contain two per cent water by weight.
Last month, scientists provided the best estimates for water on Mars, claiming it once had more liquid H2) than the Arctic Ocean - and the planet kept these oceans for more than 1.5 billion years.
The findings suggest there was ample time and water for life on Mars to thrive, but over the last 3.7 billion years the red planet has lost 87 per cent of its water - leaving it barren and dry.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
NASA verdoezelt bewijs van leven op Mars. Deze wetenschapper zegt het te kunnen bewijzen
NASA verdoezelt bewijs van leven op Mars. Deze wetenschapper zegt het te kunnen bewijzen
De NASA verdoezelt bewijs van leven op Mars, zo stelt een wetenschapper van de Universiteit van Buckingham.
Marsrover Curiosity heeft volgens Barry DiGregorio namelijk sporenfossielen vastgelegd op de rode planeet.
Hij is van plan een onderzoek te publiceren dat alles uit de doeken zal doen. Volgens DiGregorio is de NASA op de hoogte van de vondst en heeft de ruimtevaartorganisatie ervoor gekozen het publiek in het duister te houden.
Doelbewust negeert
De wetenschapper vermoedt dat het ruimteagentschap de vondst doelbewust negeert omdat het zich voorbereidt op een bemande Marsmissie in de jaren 2030.
Volgens de NASA zijn de voorwerpen die Curiosity op Mars heeft gefotografeerd rotskristallen.
Dr. DiGregorio zegt dat de fossielen erop wijzen dat er ooit wezens rondliepen op het Marsoppervlak.
Heel vreemd
“Vanuit het hoofdkwartier van de NASA kwam het bevel om de rover naar het volgende punt te sturen,” zei hij.
“Ze vonden het niet belangrijk genoeg om te onderzoeken,” vervolgde hij. “Ik vond dat heel vreemd, aangezien zich miljarden jaren geleden waarschijnlijk meren bevonden in de krater.”
Enkele weken geleden werd een Europese ruimtesonde in een baan om Mars gebracht. De sonde moet in de atmosfeer van de rode planeet gaan speuren naar mogelijke tekenen van leven.
Methaan
De ESA liet weten dat de Trace Gas Orbiter in april gaat zoeken naar gassen zoals methaan, die het resultaat kunnen zijn van biologische of geologische activiteit.
Europa is van plan in 2021 een rover op Mars te laten landen. Een Europese testlander crashte in 2016 op het Marsoppervlak.
Vreemd object gespot op Google Earth bij Antarctica. Is dit een gecrasht schip?
Vreemd object gespot op Google Earth bij Antarctica. Is dit een gecrasht schip?
Alienjagers zijn ervan overtuigd dat een mysterieus object dat op Google Earth is gespot, een gecrasht ruimteschip is. Dat schrijft de Daily Mail.
Het object werd ontdekt op het nagenoeg onbewoonde eiland Zuid-Georgia, dat zich in de buurt van Antarctica bevindt.
Sporen
Het vreemde object is waargenomen in de buurt van de bijna 3000 meter hoge Mount Paget, het hoogste punt van Zuid-Georgia.
Achter het object zijn sporen te zien, wat suggereert dat het door de sneeuw is gegleden voordat het tot stilstand kwam.
Vreemde massa
Beelden van de vreemde massa zijn zaterdag op YouTube gezet en inmiddels bijna een half miljoen keer bekeken.
Sommigen geloven dat het hier gaat om het werk van buitenaardsen, terwijl vele anderen zeggen dat het een rots is die vanaf een nabijgelegen gletsjer is gedrukt.
Het Pentagon doet nog steeds onderzoek naar UFO’s. Worden deze objecten bestuurd door buitenaardsen?
Het Pentagon doet nog steeds onderzoek naar UFO’s. Worden deze objecten bestuurd door buitenaardsen?
Leslie Kean schreef mee aan een schokkend artikel dat eind vorig jaar in de New York Times werd gepubliceerd over het geheime UFO-project van het Pentagon.
Het artikel maakte veel los, aangezien de Amerikaanse overheid jarenlang beweerde dat het laatste officiële onderzoek naar UFO-waarnemingen bijna 50 jaar geleden werd beëindigd.
“De onderzoekers die zich hiermee bezighouden hebben zich altijd al afgevraagd wat er achter de schermen gebeurt,” zei Kean.
Nog steeds
“Loopt er een overheidsonderzoek? Nu kunnen we die vraag met ‘ja’ beantwoorden,” voegde ze toe.
Dit maakt het onderwerp geloofwaardig en nu weten mensen dat de overheid het serieus genoeg neemt om er geld in te stoppen en er jarenlang onderzoek naar te doen, aldus Kean.
De Amerikaanse overheid gaf tussen 2007 en 2011 in totaal 22 miljoen dollar uit aan het onderzoek naar UFO’s. Hoewel de financiering werd stopgezet, loopt het onderzoek volgens Kean nog steeds.
Ongelooflijke dingen
“We weten dat dit programma nog steeds bestaat,” zei ze. “Er worden onder meer gevallen onderzocht waarbij militairen en piloten deze onbekende objecten zagen.”
Kean benadrukte dat ongeïdentificeerde vliegende objecten niet per definitie ruimteschepen zijn die worden bestuurd door buitenaardsen.
Maar tijdens het onderzoek zijn UFO’s bestudeerd die ongelooflijke dingen konden doen, dingen waar geen enkel conventioneel vliegtuig toe in staat is.
Uit de ruimte
Zo zagen legerpiloten mysterieuze objecten voor de kust van San Diego. “Die bleken uit de ruimte te zijn gekomen,” zei Kean.
“Ze kwamen naar de aarde en verdwenen weer in de lucht,” vervolgde ze. “Ze bewogen buitengewoon snel van ene naar de andere plek. Veel sneller dan vliegtuigen.”
March 12 this year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Fire in the Sky, Hollywood’s controversial take on the famous Travis Walton UFO abduction case of 1975. Walton, a logger from Snowflake, Arizona, famously claimed to have been taken aboard a flying saucer and to have interacted with two different species of aliens—the now iconic ‘Grays’ and the attractive human-looking beings known in UFOlogy as ‘Nordics.’ What distinguishes Walton’s story from innumerable other accounts of cosmic kidnapping is that his apparent abduction was witnessed, in part, by the six other men on his logging crew. They sped back into town that night to inform bemused authorities of how a UFO had zapped Travis in front of their very eyes. Assuming he was dead, the terrified loggers had left their colleague where he lay, the saucer looming above his lifeless body.
D.B. Sweeney as Travis Walton, and Robert Patrick as Mike Rogers.
A swirling storm of confusion, anger, and allegations was soon to descend on the sleepy town of Snowflake. The loggers, having reported to police that their friend had been taken by a UFO, immediately were considered suspects in Walton’s disappearance and possible murder. After no less than five days, Walton returned. He was found in a telephone box some three miles outside of Snowflake, huddled and shivering. He had five days’ growth of beard and was visibly malnourished. As he was taken back into town he began babbling about strange creatures with large eyes. He assumed he’d been gone just a couple of hours and was stunned into prolonged silence when he was told almost a week had passed. Today, the case remains one of the most famous on record, and this is thanks in no small part to Hollywood.
The movie
Featuring solid performances from D.B. Sweeney as Travis, and Robert Patrick as logging-crew-leader Mike Rogers, the Fire in the Sky movie was a reasonably faithful accounting of the Walton experience—that is until its final act, which notoriously pummelled the meat of Walton’s encounter out of all recognition. The Nordic beings described by Travis and their walkabout with him in a spaceport were nowhere to be seen in the movie. Walton’s skittish Grays were replaced with frightful goblin-like beings who literally drag the logger like a sack of spuds through their pestilent, rotting spaceship—all dank tunnels and dripping embryonic sacks—before gluing him to a table with a suffocating membrane and subjecting him to graphic torture with a thick needle to the eyeball. It’s a horrific sequence, so powerful as to erase almost all memory of the events that precede it. This marked the point in time when alien abduction truly entered the horror genre. The film would go on to influence abduction-themed fright-fests such as Altered(2005), The Fourth Kind (2009), Dark Skies (2013), Alien Abduction (2014), and, in particular, Extraterrestrial (2014), to name but a few.
The UFO community was outraged by Fire in the Sky, and all fingers were pointed at screenwriter Tracy Tormé. In a 2014 interview, Tormé explained to me his writing process for the movie, the cultural climate in which it was written, and the circumstances which led to the movie being so creatively distorted.
Reaching out
Tormé had already successfully explored the subject of alien abduction in his 1992 CBS miniseries, Intruders, which took inspiration from the work of researchers Budd Hopkins and John Mack; now, the screenwriter wanted to tackle abduction through cinema. Tormé had reached out to Walton as early as 1985:
When I first met him over the phone, it was ten years almost to the day since the incident had happened. I told him that I had a lot of respect for his story and I really wanted to make a movie, but first I wanted to investigate the story more and see how I felt about it. Travis was very, very reticent. He felt like no one had really treated him fairly in the past. Especially people from Hollywood. So he was not inclined to do this.
Tormé agreed that they should meet in Snowflake, Arizona, so that screenwriter and experiencer could get better acquainted. Tormé recalled:
I spent three days with Travis. I went up to the site where it happened, and I took him and Mike Rogers with me and had them re-enact the incident. They had not been back to the site in nearly ten years at this point, and they were both extremely haunted to be up there again. It’s a very lonely place and it had changed hardly at all. There was even a wood pile on the ground that had been there ten years ago when they were there.
William Keeble / Onwinges Prod.
Tormé returned to Snowflake at least six times over the next six years: “I just tried to learn more and more about the case every time I went. I got to know Travis and Mike very well. All the ideas for Fire in the Sky really formulated out of those trips.” Selling the script to studios, however, was an uphill struggle for Tormé:
On several occasions I thought we’d found a buyer, then I would have to go back to Travis and tell him the sad news ‘no, they’re not going forward.’ The studios at the time found the subject of abductions strange and unbelievable, and really, ultimately, not satisfying. If the aliens had come here and invaded the Earth and blown up the cities or something they might have been more open to making the movie.
Tormé emphasizes that abduction movies in general were a hard sell in the late-1980s-early-1990s:
At that time there was not a lot of interest in this subject. People wonder why it was such a struggle to get Fire in the Sky made. But the public really did not know about the abduction phenomenon. They weren’t following it, they weren’t reading about it. It had not broken through in a big way in the mass media. I really believe these two projects [Fire and Intruders] were part of the process of people becoming aware of how these things allegedly work.
Screenwriter Tracy Torme.
When eventually Paramount Studios bought Tormé’s script, it had been six-and-a-half years since the screenwriter had first approached Travis Walton. The dream would now become a reality. But the reality would be compromised…
Script changes
“The original script was, I would say, close to one-hundred-percent accurate to Travis’ memory of the events,” Tormé told me:
I literally used his memory of waking up on the table and then everything that happened to him up to the point that he’s put back on the highway. I followed his story to the tee. I felt an obligation to these guys to tell the story in the truest way that I could. And I thoroughly believed him by this point, too. I had come to the conclusion that the case was real, and that he was not a liar, that’s for sure. So I originally wrote exactly what he said.
One day, Tormé received a phone call in his office at Paramount Studios: “It was a panicked Paramount executive who just happened to have seen Intruders on TV the night before. He was unbelievably put-off and worried because he’d seen little gray men with big eyes standing over a table doing experiments on someone, therefore it’d ‘been done before,’ therefore he had no interest in doing the Walton movie and was going to kill the project if I didn’t come up with something else.”
Tormé was shell-shocked. “They were serious,” he stressed, “they were firm on it. They were going to shut the project down and not make it. We were going to have to start back at square one.” Tormé had no other option but to re-write the abduction sequence: “I got together with the director and with Travis and we devised the fictional sequence that is seen in the movie.” Tormé did at least attempt to maintain the essence of the encounter:
I insisted that if we’re going to fictionalize this, let’s at least mirror his real occurrence. So one example would be, when Travis said he’d had trouble breathing when he came to in the strange environment, we put a scene in where they put a mask over his face. That’s an example of the type of thing we tried to do. Yes, we were creating something wholly fictional, but we were going to try to maintain somewhat the feel and integrity of the terrifying experience that he had. So we tried our best to write a scary, disturbing sequence. But it was entirely fictional. I knew very early on that a lot of UFO people were going to be very upset about this.
Reception
Despite its divisive ending, Tormé is proud of Fire in the Sky, first and foremost on its undeniable strength as a human drama. The movie made back its budget, but little more. It received mixed reviews from the critics, although, ironically, the legendary Roger Ebert praised the film’s final sequence for its believability, writing: “The scenes inside the craft are really very good. They convincingly depict a reality I haven’t seen in the movies before, and for once I did believe that I was seeing something truly alien, and not just a set decorator’s daydreams.” However, Ebert was left deflated as the credits rolled, adding: “The movie ends on an inconclusive and frustrating note.” Film critic James Berardinelli described Fire in the Sky as a “muddled-up mess,” saying “It can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be horror, drama, or science-fiction. As a result, it ends up being ineffective as any of the three.”
These criticisms, essentially describing the movie as a mishmash of genres with an inconclusive ending, in fact speak to its overall authenticity as an abduction story. The phenomenon, as experienced in reality, does not comfortably lend itself to any one genre, encompassing as it does an array of complex facets straddling drama, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and others besides. Walton’s real-life experience had no satisfactory resolution, and neither did the film. In this sense, ‘true’ abduction movies arguably will always struggle to make sizable dents at the box-office. Extreme ‘Hollywoodization’ is deemed essential to bringing these stories successfully to a mass audience.
A researcher studying the possibility of microscopic life on Mars has just made a stunning announcement that he has evidence showing soft-bodied creatures once lived on the red planet and NASA knows this as well and is covering up the evidence. What’s more, the Curiosity Rover was parked in a bed of fossils and NASA received orders from “HQ” to move along … there’s nothing to see here. Really?
The researcher is Barry DiGregorio and if his name sounds familiar, you’re probably up on ichnology – the study of dissolution cavities left behind by organisms along with their tracks, trails and burrows. DiGregorio is an honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham, whose website bio brags that “in 2000 Barry published a comparison of dissolution cavities found in rocks on the shores of Lake Ontario to similar looking rocks imaged at the Viking 2 landing site on Mars.” So, if there’s anyone qualified to spot evidence of organisms that once crawled around on Mars, it would be Barry DiGregorio — and that’s exactly what he claims to have done.
Fossilized burrows produced by crustaceans during the Middle Jurassic period in Israel
In January, NASA posted photos on Twitter taken by the Curiosity rover of what it called stick-like figures and speculated on what they might be.
“Each is about a quarter-inch long. Maybe they’re crystals? Or they could be minerals that filled spaces where crystals dissolved away.”
According to Metro.co,uk, Barry vehemently disagreed.
“They look remarkably similar to Ordovician trace fossils I have studied and photographed here on Earth. If not trace fossils,at other geological explanations will NASA come up with.”
If you slept through that lecture in geology class, the Ordovician period was part of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from 485.4 to 443.8 million years ago. DiGregiorio was obviously awake and immediately spotted the resemblance between life signs on Earth and what he believes are life signs on Mars. Unfortunately, NASA didn’t agree with him and sent Curiosity to take photos in another spot.
With that move, DeGregorio told the Daily Star Online that he smelled a rat.
“Put it this way, these images, these figures, have not been seen on Mars to date. One of the things that grabbed me immediately was the expediency that NASA left the area of such a mission. So when I started looking, it wasn’t just the objects that were attached the outside, what they are calling sticks. “If you look at the images more closely, the sticks merge into the host rock, this actually has features in it that are reminiscent of trace fossils.”
And …
“NASA has turned its back on trying to get the data on this. The order came down from NASA HQ that they should move the rover on to the next point.”
Why does he think NASA was ordered by “HQ” (NASA is part of the executive branch – is he referring to the White House?) to ‘turn its back on signs of life? DiGregorio believes NASA or HQ or someone in the know wants to increase excitement in the proposed 2030 manned mission to Mar by having a human (re-)discover these signs of Martian life in person.
“If they announced that, once that has been satisfied to the general public, people who pay their taxes to send the $2.5billion probe to Mars, they are going to say okay well we discovered life, we don’t need to go there anymore.”
DiGregorio says he’s working with two other experts in ichnology (there’s more than him?) on a paper he will present to NASA and the public clearly stating the evidence that those “stick figures” on Mars are signs of life.
Is he right? Will he succeed?
Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know He’s in the best selling show Is there life on Mars? — “Life on Mars?”(David Bowie)
Ball lightning is a mystery of atmospheric science that has fascinated researchers and laymen alike for centuries. While a range of theories exist that suppose how and why it may form, to-date we have no real clear explanations for the phenomenon, despite the accumulation of a wealth of scientific data over the last several decades.
Due to its curious nature, there have been several attempts to recreate ball lightning in a laboratory setting in recent years. Business Insiderreported in 2013 that a group of researchers at the U.S. Air Force Academy managed to create “a ball-shaped flash of plasma” in a laboratory setting that “closely resembles” ball lightning as it occurs in nature.
According to a recent paper in Science Advances, an effect similar to ball lightning has once again been produced in a lab setting … although this time, it occurred on the quantum level. The study, co-authored by researchers Wonjae Lee1, Andrei H. Gheorghe, and several others is titled “Synthetic electromagnetic knot in a three-dimensional skyrmion.” The study observes the behavior of particular groupings of atoms, called Bose-Einstein condensates, which consisted in this case of rubidium atoms that were operating near absolute zero (thus presenting conditions where the movement of particles is very minimal).
According to the paper’s abstract, the experiment led to the observation of a theoretical phenomenon which had never been observed before in a lab setting, and which may present new clues about how ball lightning is formed:
“We experimentally realize a simulation in which a charged quantum particle interacts with the knotted electromagnetic fields peculiar to a topological model of ball lightning. These phenomena are induced by precise spatiotemporal control of the spin field of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate, simultaneously creating a Shankar skyrmion—a topological excitation that was theoretically predicted four decades ago but never before observed experimentally. Our results reveal the versatile capabilities of synthetic electromagnetism and provide the first experimental images of topological three-dimensional skyrmions in a quantum system.”
Writing for Gizmodo, science writer Ryan Mandelbaum explains Bose-Einstein condensates as systems that are “able to demonstrate strange quantum effects on macroscopic scales, and they allow researchers to create otherwise impossible-to-study phenomena, like magnets with only one pole, supersolids, Rydberg polarons, and in this case, strange, knotted magnetic fields.”
Hence, the researchers liken the observation of the mysterious Shankar skyrmion, in this case, to being essentially a “topological model of ball lightning,” produced in a controlled setting.
The enduring question, of course, is how (and why) such things may occur in nature, and presumably on a scale that is orders of magnitude greater than that observed when being induced in a lab setting. More importantly, what natural phenomena could constitute the unusual, self-contained luminosity of ball lightning, which sometimes appears to erupt spontaneously into an environment, and in the absence of weather systems and other meteorological phenomena associated with “normal” lightning?
Photo of possible ball lightning-like manifestation over Table Rock, North Carolina in 2009 (photo by Bill Fox).
There are some unusual occurrences of ball lightning that have been reported over the years, which may provide some clues about what causes it to form. Examining a few of these, one such report (albeit an early one) comes from Michael W.Rowe’s 1983 article in the British Journal of Meteorology, titled “Unusual Ball Lightning,” wherein it was described that a ball lightning manifestation occurred with what appeared to one observer to be “chains”:
“It happened in the afternoon in 1924. There came a large ball of fire — or so it looked — but the thing was that it had chains all the way round. It lasted about five minutes, then all the chains clashed together with a terrific bang; then we had a terrible thunderstorm which lasted quite a long time.’ In a second let ter Mrs. Revell drew the ball lightning as a red globe with 16 rays, composed of links like a chain, issuing from it; the rays were rather longer than the diameter of the ball. She said, ‘You asked the size. From the ground it looked about four to five yards across, which would be larger than that in the sky. The chains opened from the top to the bottom with a terrific bang.”
Four years before the account presented above, we have a similar incident from Parkside, Australia, where another unusual ball lighting manifestation was observed after a loud noise was heard some distance away. The account given is as follows:
“It wasn’t long till we heard a hissing noise and, looking up to the western sky, saw an object about 12 inches in diameter slowly moving through the air down toward us — about 12 feet away. It was travelling eastward and came down over Mrs. Harris’s wooden fence landing on the cement porch floor about 3 feet behind us. It gracefully bounced along the cement floor in a straight path covering the 30 foot length of the verandah at a walking pace. It bounced three or four times rising to a height of 18 inches on each occasion. Each time the spherical ball touched the cement it was flattened at the point of contact, and deformed, but it quickly resumed its globular shape when it left the ground. It was not transparent but, rather, like a ball of smoke with glowing ‘comma-shaped’ electrical ‘worms’ wriggling about — sizzling, hissing and flickering. It flattened by 1/4 into the egg shape on each bounce. On reaching the far western end of our verandah it accelerated rapidly and rose at a steep angle of about 45 degrees clearing the apricot tree, wires, and the house next door. At this stage my mother rushed in the back door of the house where we huddled for about 30 seconds before hearing a resounding crash some 250 yards away off to the east. It had hit Green’s house at the far eastern end of Campbell Road. It apparently then bounced all the way to the Salvation Army home and demolished the whole house somewhere near Dawson and Florence Streets at Fullarton.”
Another peculiarity of ball lightning, in addition to its association with unusual forms and loud noises, is its occasional appearance in a metallic, or even glass-like form (such reports often occur in the daytime). In an incident dated June 1, 1984, a Mrs Elsie Haigh of Nottingham, England, observed the following, which again was featured in the British Journal of Meteorology the same year the incident occurred:
“…at approximately 5.45 p.m., I was in my kitchen. The window and door were both closed. I was standing with my back to the window when I heard a ‘boiling noise’ and a noise which sounded like glass splintering — a crash sound. I was very scared and turned around to face the window and saw a large glass-looking ball, approximately 10 inches in diameter (25 cm), slightly oblong (oblate), with a white filament in the middle. This was floating on a bowl of water which was in the sink. I ran to the bathroom, and seconds later I heard an explosion and splintering glass. When it was quiet — I think a few seconds elapsed — I returned to the kitchen. The ball had gone and there was no damage. I can only describe it as a miracle.”
By far, the most peculiar report involving a ball lightning manifestation occurred on August 17, 1978, in a region of the Caucasian Mountains in Russia. The incident involved a man named Victor Kavunenko, who was camping with four other individuals at an altitude of 3900 meters when a luminous phenomenon manifested within their tent during the night:
“I woke up with the strange feeling that a stranger had made his way into our tent. Thrusting my head out of the sleeping bag, I froze. A bright yellow blob was floating about one metre from the floor. It disappeared into Korovin’s sleeping bag. The man screamed in pain. The ball jumped out and proceeded to circle over the other bags now hiding in one, now in another. When it burned a hole in mine I felt an unbearable pain, as if I were being burned by a welding machine, and blacked out. Regaining consciousness after a while, I saw the same yellow ball which, methodically observing a pattern that was known to it alone, kept diving into the bags, evoking desperate, heart-rendering (sic) howls from the victims. This indescribable horror repeated itself several times. When I came back to my senses for the fifth or sixth time, the ball was gone. I could not move my arms or legs and my body was burning as if it had turned into a ball of fire itself. In the hospital, where we were flown by helicopter, seven wounds were discovered on my body. They were worse than burns. Pieces of muscle were found to be torn out to the bone. The same happened to Shigin, Kaprov and Bashkirov. Oleg Korovin had been killed by the ball — possibly because his bag had been on a rubber mattress, insulating it from the ground. The ball lightning did not touch a single metal object, injuring only people.”
This incident is arguably the most sensational of the collection examined in this article; it is always wise to treat such cases with caution, although Kavunenko’s testimony certainly shouldn’t be ruled out (and while speculative, the events described in Kavunenko’s narrative certainly bear a passing similarity to some of the events surrounding the mysterious deaths of a group of Russian hikers in 1959, known as the Dyatlov Pass incident).
With little doubt, even the newest discoveries detailing ways ball lightning is formed leave much to the imagination. It is one of those rare, enduring mystery that remains in the modern era, and one that is sure to fascinate and perplex us for many more years to come.
Government denials and UFOs go hand-in-hand. In fact, that element of unexplained aerial phenomena being something “they” don’t want us to know could be one reason why UFOs continue to fascinate us. After last year’s revelations that the Pentagon has been studying UFO phenomenon for years, though, it’s becoming more and more difficult to deny that governments do have a documented interest in studying the mysteries of UFO activity. However, that’s not to say that all nations’ governments are willing to disclose any study of or interest in unidentified aircraft and phenomena. For their part, the Japanese government recently drafted an official statement on UFOs, and their position appears to be one of disinterest. Is there more going on behind the scenes, or are Japanese leaders unconcerned with the unexplained?
It’s not like they don’t have other problems to worry about at the moment.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet staff issued the statement on February 27 after Seiji Osaka, a Lower House member of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, petitioned the Japanese government to disclose any information it had concerning the study of UFOs. Osaka’s inquiry was in direct response to the American government’s secretive “Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program” made public last year. While the request was made in the interests of the freedom of information, Abe’s response was characteristic of most official responses to UFO issues.
Reptilians are so predictable.
The Japanese government’s official response stated that the existence of UFOs “has not been confirmed” and military and governmental leaders “have not made any particular consideration of how to respond should one fly into Japan.” One elected official, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, disagreed, however, telling the press that while “the official response from the government is extremely stereotypical, I personally believe (UFOs) definitely exist.”
This official statement comes at a strange time. With North Korea continuing to carry out missile tests and South Korean and American forces ramping up their air power presence in the region, chances are high that Japanese citizens might see some unfamiliar craft flying overhead. Is the Japanese government’s response intended to quell public fears at a time of heightened tensions, or is this yet another example of UFO denial by elected officials?
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A Compilation Video Of Many Of The UFO Reports Coming Out This Week, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
A Compilation Video Of Many Of The UFO Reports Coming Out This Week, March 2018, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sightings: March 2018 Location of sightings: worldwide Here are some great compilations of the recent UFO sightings and reports this week coming out of MUFON. Some of them are really eye openers an get you wondering. Thats why we are interested in the subject, the mystery of it all pulls us toward it. Scott C. Waring
MUFON 90433 Wheeling, WV, USA 2017-08-21 MUFON 90438 Lowell, MA, USA 2018-02-26 MUFON 90442 Tampa, FL, USA 2018-02-25 MUFON 90460 Cascais, PT 2012-05-30 MUFON 90496 Naples, FL, USA 2018-02-28 MUFON 90502 Woodstock, IL, USA 2018-02-26 MUFON 90503 Marysville, WA, USA 2018-03-01 MUFON 90523 Dearborn Heights, MI, USA 2018-03-02 MUFON 90552 Baltimore, MD, USA 2017-10-24 MUFON 90555 London, UK 2018-01-16
Explain This! Rare Sky Anomaly filmed above Ecuador and it is NOT the Sun!
Explain This! Rare Sky Anomaly filmed above Ecuador and it is NOT the Sun!
Things get more and more bizarre every day. A rare sky phenomenon has been spotted above Ecuador on March 3, 2018.
The atmospheric anomaly actually rises up from the horizon approximately at the same rate of speed as the setting sun and at first glance you would think it is the sun, it isn’t.
The anomaly gradually fades away until it is completely gone and there is no sun.
Maybe it could have been some sort of reflection off a faint cloud structure bouncing upwards for some reason?
Audio Recording Reveals The Moment A Bizarre UFO Flying Very Fast And Disappearing Without A Trace Even The US Military F-15s Fail To Track It
Audio Recording Reveals The Moment A Bizarre UFO Flying Very Fast And Disappearing Without A Trace Even The US Military F-15s Fail To Track It
An audio recording relays the scene wherein a white speck appeared on the radar then strangely vanished without a trace. It somewhat relays the bizarre moment an intruder UFO was noticed at high speed above Oregon.
The mysterious object reportedly appeared on the radar, and air traffic controllers were left baffled with it. Adding to the mystery, it chillingly vanished without a trace.
F-15 fighter jets were sent to the scene, but could not find the mysterious thing.
Now audio tapes reveal the hours of confusion of the aerial incident that took place on October 25, 2017. The alarm was raised at 4:30 pm to Oakland Center Sector 31, close to the border of Oregon.
The object in question was apparently moving very fast at 37,000 feet over Crater Lake towards the Willamette Valley when it was first noticed.
Officials tried to follow the mysterious object on radar but were unable to track it. They tried to contact it, but it appeared it did not have a working transponder.
A United Airlines flight called in later saying that the object, described as a large white plane, had no markings on it to identify itself.
The sightings of the plane lasted for 30 minutes and stretched hundreds of miles.
The same report was called in over and over again, but it was too far away to decipher the type of plane it was.
F-15 fighter jets from Portland were deployed to find and intercept the unknown plane just 27 minutes after the aircraft was spotted.
However, the air control agent reported no track on the plane, saying it must be in stealth mode.
Pilots descending into Portland International Airport last spotted the unknown aircraft.
This was filmed over Baltimore, MD on 24th October 2018 and it was just recently reported to MUFON.
Witness report:
Three white lights in a Right angle triangle next to TV hill that fade. While driving to the park with my cousin to take my dog for a walk, i noticed 3 lights in a triangle pattern to the right of the tv hill towers. i started recorded, we had to go around a couple blocks as there was traffic and road work at the time and no where to pull over. the video i am attaching shows the lights to the right of the tv towers. the topic most light quickly fads out while the other 2 remain and then start to fad out. at this time i can not get a hold of my cousin to make a report.
Despite Funding Cuts, US Government Still Studying UFOs
Despite Funding Cuts, US Government Still Studying UFOs
Months after a bombshell story revealed that the US government has spent millions of dollars and many research hours detecting and studying unidentified foreign objects, the government continues to study these phenomenon even though funding has technically been cut off, according to a new report.
"We know that this program existed, it still exists and it investigated military cases and very significant cases of pilot encounters with these objects," according to one of the authors who broke the story late last year.
In December, the New York Times reported that the guided missile cruiser USS Princeton had tracked enigmatic aircraft that "appeared suddenly at 80,000 feet and then hurtled toward the sea, eventually stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering." After the maneuver the objects would shoot directly up or fall out of radar range, according to the report.
"It's completely rational to be interested and to try and figure out what's going on with this," Leslie Kean told WTOP Monday. Kean was a co-author of the December report in the New York Times.
"The researchers in this area have always speculated and wondered what is going on behind the scenes," Kean began. "Is there a government investigation into this? And now we know the answer is yes. It just established credibility for the topic for people to know that our government takes it seriously enough to have to put financial resources into it."
While it's not clear how the government is financing the programs without directly funding them, one possibility is for military and intelligence agencies to dig into their black ops budgets. For fiscal year 2018, the military and intel communities have $78 billion for running off-the-books operations. The Trump administration has requested increasing the black ops budget to $81 billion.
While the stigma around UFO research can make academics and researchers "feel like they're going to be laughed at," an attitude that has tainted institutions' perceptions of further research, Kean expressed hopes that things were changing.
Perhaps one way to change perceptions of UFO research is to introduce the vital clarification that UFOs should not be misconstrued with aliens. "You can't take the leap of looking at something unexplained and then assume that it's alien," Keane noted.
Thousands of People Have Mysteriously Disappeared in "Alaska's Bermuda Triangle"
Thousands of People Have Mysteriously Disappeared in "Alaska's Bermuda Triangle"
Written byCody Gough
You've probably heard legends about planes and ships mysteriously disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle (or Devil's Triangle), the area of ocean between Florida, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda. But those legends don't come close to the very real, very serious disappearances that have plagued Alaska for decades. There's a region of wilderness known by names like "Alaska's Bermuda Triangle," the "Bermuda Triangle of Alaska", and the "Alaskan Triangle" — and no matter what name you give it, it's far more deadly than its tropical cousin.
Missing In Alaska
The border of the Alaskan Triangle stretches from Barrow on the state's north coast to Anchorage and to Juneau across the southern coast, and includes vast areas of largely unexplored wilderness. Sprawling forests, icy mountain peaks, and desolate tundras are clearly not the safest places in the world, but of the hundreds of search-and-rescue missions conducted every year, state troopers rarely find any trace of bodies — dead or alive.
The Alaskan Triangle first received widespread attention when US House Majority Leader Hale Boggs' airplane vanished somewhere between Anchorage and Juneau in 1972. The disappearance triggered one of the country's largest ever search-and-rescue operations, involving 40 military aircraft, 50 civilian planes, and 39 days of searching an area of 32,000 square miles. Yet the search yielded not a shred of results: no wreckage, no debris, no human remains. Nothing.
(The silver lining: after this incident, Congress passed a law mandating the installation of emergency locator transmitters in all U.S. civilian aircraft.)
That wasn't the only aircraft to be lost, either: back in 1950, a military craft with 44 passengers had disappeared without a trace; and a Cessna 340 carrying a pilot and four passengers vanished in 1990, never to be heard from again. Disappearances without a trace are strangely typical of cases in the region, and the cases aren't rare: since 1988, more than 16,000 people have vanished in the Alaskan Triangle. This contributes to the annual filing of roughly 4 missing person reports for every 1,000 people in Alaska — more than twice the national average.
Nature Or Unnatural?
It's easy to write off the disappearances as people getting lost and quickly succumbing to the elements, but the numbers seem too staggering for such an easy answer. One potential reason for the disappearing planes: the terrain utterly obliterates them. In 1947, for example, the British South American Airways (BSAA) Lancastrian 3 airliner Star Dust disappeared en route from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile, and its fate was unknown for more than 50 years. Two Argentinian climbers found the plane's wreckage while ascending Mount Tupungato in 1998, and investigators concluded that Star Dust had likely crashed into a nearly vertical glacier, which caused an avalanche that buried it within minutes
Still, it seems unlikely that similar avalanches would have occurred in every plane that's gone missing over the Alaskan Triangle. And what about the lost hikers, tourists, and Alaskan residents who weren't flying in planes? This is where theories get a little less, er, grounded in science, to say the least.
In the book "In Search of the Kushtaka, Alaska's Other Bigfoot: The Land-Otter Man of the Tlingit Indians," author Dennis Waller explores the history of mythical shape-shifting creatures found in stories of the Tlingit and Tsimshian Indians indigenous to southeastern Alaska. The "Kushtaka" roughly translates to "land-otter man" and is the Bigfoot of the Alaskan Triangle. Legend has it that the creature appears to travelers in an irresistible form (such as a relative or vulnerable child) to lure victims to a nearby river, where it tears them to shreds or turns them into another Kushtaka.
A more grounded explanation is that the deceptively beautiful glaciers of Alaska have swallowed many of the missing people and planes. Although they may appear to be solid ice, the glaciers are actually honeycombed with hidden chambers, and those crevasses can be larger than houses or even office buildings. Coupled with the falling snow of the northern climate, it's not unreasonable to think that in the Alaskan Triangle, "vanishing into thin air" really just means "buried by nature." Just remember to stay safe if you do venture into the Alaskan wilderness, and contact Alaska'sMissing Persons Clearinghouseif you find (or need help finding) a wayward traveler.
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Scientists Find: Certain Black Holes Erase Your Past, And Give You Infinite Number Of Possible Futures
Scientists Find: Certain Black Holes Erase Your Past, And Give You Infinite Number Of Possible Futures
A researcher from the University of California Berkley claims that there are certain types of black holes in the cosmos that can ‘press the reset button on history,’ sort of speak.
According to experts, these black holes have the ability to reset the past completely and offer an infinite number of possible futures.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In the real world, the past uniquely determines the future. If a physicist knows how the universe began, he has the necessary means to calculate its future for all time and all space. However, a UC Berkeley mathematician has found some types of black holes in which this law does not apply.
If someone ventured into one of these relatively benign black holes, he could survive, but his past would be erased, and he could have an infinite number of possible futures.
Such claims have been made in the past, and physicists have invoked a “strong cosmic censure” to explain it.
There are two types actually; the weak and strong cosmic censorship hypotheses.
Experts suggest that there are certain ‘barriers’ within black holes, deeper than the even horizon, beyond which physics is entirely canceled out, and nothing can be predicted from there. Some argue that this barrier seals off troublesome singularities from the rest of space and time, which in turn prevents their lawlessness from becoming a pressing issue, note science alert.
However, they note a second cosmic censorship also exists. This one, a stronger version of cosmic censorship, holds the idea that physical lawlessness does not exist. This would require or the ‘barrier’ to disappear so that physics could live on.
Peter Hintz, a scientist from the University of California, Berkeley, has his doubts about version number two.
“People had been complacent for some 20 years, since the mid-’90s, that strong cosmological censorship is always verified,”says Hinz.
“We challenge that point of view.”
After studying non-rotating objects called Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter black holes, Hintz and his colleagues argue that theoretically, these mysterious black holes would have a barrier called a Cauchy horizon. Beyond this point, say, experts, there’s no cause and effect inside this warped landscape, and time and space are smeared smoothly into an infinite instant.
A spacetime diagram of the gravitational collapse of a charged spherical star to form a charged black hole. An observer traveling across the event horizon will eventually encounter the Cauchy horizon, the boundary of the region of spacetime that can be predicted from the initial data. Hintz and his colleagues found that a region of spacetime, denoted by a question mark, cannot be predicted from the initial data in a universe with accelerating expansion, like our own. This violates the principle of strong cosmic censorship.
(Image courtesy of APS/Alan Stonebraker)
The Cauchy Horizon, within the event horizon— a boundary beyond which nothing, not even light nor radiation, can escape, is where determinism breaks down. This means that it is there where the past no longer influences the future.
If someone would somehow end up venturing into these black holes, he could survive, but his past would be completely obliterated, and he would face a number of different possible futures.
“It is no longer uniquely determined by full knowledge of the initial conditions,” Hintz said. “That is why it’s very troublesome.”
What life would be like in a space where the future was unpredictable is unclear.
“No physicist is going to travel into a black hole and measure it. This is a math question. But from that point of view, this makes Einstein’s equations mathematically more interesting,” he said. “This is a question one can only study mathematically, but it has physical, almost philosophical implications, which makes it very cool.”
“This … conclusion corresponds to a severe failure of determinism in general relativity that cannot be taken lightly in view of the importance in modern cosmology” of accelerating expansion, said his colleagues at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, Vitor Cardoso, João Costa and Kyriakos Destounis, and at Utrecht University, Aron Jansen.
As quoted by Physics World, Gary Horowitz of UC Santa Barbara, who was not involved in the research, said that the study provides “the best evidence I know for a violation of strong cosmic censorship in a theory of gravity and electromagnetism.”
Did Dozens Of UFO’s Just Appear On Fox News’ Television Broadcast?
Did Dozens Of UFO’s Just Appear On Fox News’ Television Broadcast?
In a Bizarre sighing, Fox6 News Milwaukee anchors have kickstarted a massive conspiracy after showing viewers a footage of what appeared to be dozens of moving lights over Milwaukee.
The ‘UFO’ sighting happened live on air, and it started a heated debate in the online community.
So, what on Earth did Fox6 News’ cameras record over Milwaukee?
After watching the mystery objects invade the skies above Milwaukee, it was only natural to think, it was aliens, right?
Soon after it was posted on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Reddit, the video went viral and people started asking questions, what on Earth were the mystery objects above Milwaukee?
Fox has offered its theory stating that what their cameras spotted in the skies above Milwaukee were not aliens flying around in their fancy spaceships but, wait for it… SEAGULLS.
Because it is completely normal for Seagulls to fly around like this making the internet go crazy saying… it was aliens.
Image Credit: Fox News Milwaukee.
Yeah, seagulls, and not just an ordinary flock of seagulls; Illuminated seagulls, flying at 5 in the morning above Milwaukee.
Reporter Amy DuPont posted the explanation on Twitter suggesting that the lag in the recording from the cameras made it look as if the Seagulls were leaving some sort of light trail behind them.
This explanation kickstarted a set of even greater conspiracy theories, and people rushed to social media to respond to what many refer to as an absurd explanation:
“This is just another case of the government attempting to hide another UFO encounter by putting out some ridiculous explanation for it,” one Facebook user said.
“If those are seagulls they have been swimming in some nuclear waste,” one said.
“Seagulls don’t poop light emitting glitters,” wrote one user.
And because we can’t leave religion out of anything… there was this:
“They are called spirits people. Read your Bible,” someone said on Facebook.
Mick West from Metabunk argues that Seagulls is the right explanation:”Flock of seagulls looks like UFOs with vapor trails in traffic camera video. But it’s just the camera over-exposing, and the persistence of the image makes the trails. I simulated the trails in the video of seagulls with the “Echo” effect in Adobe After Effects,” West wrote on YouTube.
Giorgio Tsoukalos doesn’t agree, and who can blame Giorgio, right?
Apparently, the mystery continued Wednesday, when the tower camera again captured a similar grouping of lights.
Mystery ‘Lights’ Caught on Video Hovering Above Milwaukee May Have Been Seagulls
Video of a strange, mysterious sight in the skies above Milwaukee has created a viral stir online and prompted speculation and a number of theories about what it actually was. Around 4:43 a.m....
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Are The Mysterious Metallic Spheres Of Siberia Product Of A Long Lost Ancient Civilization?
Are The Mysterious Metallic Spheres Of Siberia Product Of A Long Lost Ancient Civilization?
Siberia: Home of frozen landscapes, and origin of countless mysteries.
A beautiful yet mysterious land in Russia has it all. From tales of lost civilizations, numerous strange explosions like the Tunguska, to countless UFO sightings and strange phenomenon, Siberia has it all.
Yakutia, a region in Northern Russia with a total area of 3,083,523 km2 of virtually unexplored and very inhospitable land, full of swamps, is a place that locals avoid at all costs since, according to them, anyone that enters the Valley of Death never returns.
There, in the enigmatic and mysterious frozen landscape, people claim to have found, among many other mysterious things, strange metallic spheres whose purpose and origin are as controversial as inexplicable to science.
The area of land is referred to by locals as Uliuiu Cherkechek, the Valley of Death. Anyone who ventures out into the unexplained can encounter a great number of mysterious metallic spheres, which many say are of extraterrestrial origin.
An alien defense grid? It almost sounds like a sci-fi movie or script from MIB, but few people who have ventured out into the unknown lands and seen the mystery spheres claim they are ‘strategically positioned.
This fact has given rise to various conspiracy theories which suggest that the enigmatic metallic spheres are not only of alien origin but were placed there to protect the region from the dangers of space, and even ‘hostile’ energies.
Beyond any speculation, the truth is that this mysterious area of land has been a protagonist of several catastrophic events such as the great Tunguska explosion in 1908, Chulum in 1984, and Vitim, in 2002. It’s almost as if the entire region is a magnet for destruction.
According to explorers who have ventured out into the unknown, this is what the mystery objects look like.
Image Credit: Biblioteca Pleyades.
People who live in the vicinity of this dangerous place believe there is no mystery to it: the Death Valley owes its name to countless deaths and illness that marked the fate of anyone who dared roam the vicinity of any of these metal spheres which are, according to rumors of extraterrestrial origin.
Legends state that here, in this inhospitable landscape live the ancient demons of the “Taiga.”
In 1853, R. Maak, a noted explorer of the region, wrote: “In Suntar [a Yakut settlement] I was told that in the upper reaches of the Viliuy there is a stream called Algy timirbit (which translates as “the large cauldron sank”) flowing into the Viliuy. Close to its bank in the forest, there is a gigantic cauldron made of copper. Its size is unknown as only the rim is visible above the ground, but several trees grow within it.”
In 1936, alongside the Olguidakh (“place with a cauldron”) River, a geologist led by elderly natives came upon a smooth metal half-sphere, reddish in color, protruding from the ground with such a sharp edge that it “cut a fingernail.” Its outer walls were about two centimeters thick, and it stuck out of the ground roughly a fifth of its diameter. The geologist despatched a description of it to Yakutsk, the regional center.
Some of the objects seem to be buried beneath the surface.
Image Credit: Biblioteca Pleyades.
In 1979, an archaeological expedition from Yakutsk attempted to find the hemisphere he had encountered. The team members were accompanied by a guide who had seen the structure several times in his youth. However, since any years went by and the region’s topography changed, the group failed to find the hemisphere.
The same thing was recorded by N. D. Arkhipov, a researcher who studied the ancient cultures of Yakutia, who wrote: “Among the population of the Viliuy basin there is a legend from ancient times about the existence in the upper reaches of that river of bronze cauldrons or olguis. This legend deserves attention as the areas that are the supposed location of the mythical cauldrons contain several streams with the name Olguidakh – ‘Cauldron Stream.'”
Lone hunters who have ventured into the area where the metallic spheres are said to be located say that some of the mystery spheres are submerged under water while other spheres are half-buried in the ground. Some have already been devoured by vegetation, and remain hidden from sight. Nonetheless, they plague the entire area.
The “olguis” are said to be forged out of an unknown metal, believed to be “copper-like” in nature.
The metal of these spheres is said to be extremely resistant and hard, and no one has been able to analyze them, due to fear of approaching the spheres. The few tests that were made were ignored by laboratories who have failed to identify their composition and origin.
Local hunters say that over time, these metallic spheres sink into the ground and disappear from sight. They leave behind strange stains where vegetation cannot grow, the reason why many tribal elders have cursed the spheres and the lands where they are found.
Strangely, despite the fact that their existence seems to be very well documented on paper, we have failed to find a single quality image of the mysterious spheres.
Mikhail Koretsky from Vladivostok who visited the mysterious area where the spheres are located wrote:
“I was there three times. The first time was in 1933, when I was ten – I travelled with my father when he went there to earn some money – then in 1937, without my father. And the last time was in 1947 as part of a group of youngsters.
“The ’Valley of Death’ extends along a right-hand tributary of the Viliuy River. In point of fact it is a whole chain of valleys along its flood lands. All three times I was there with a guide, a Yakut. We didn’t go there because life was good, but because there, in the back of beyond, you could pan for gold without the threat that at the end of the season you’d be robbed or get a bullet in the back of your head.
“As for mysterious objects, there are probably a lot of them there, as in three seasons I saw seven of those ’cauldrons’. They all struck me as totally perplexing: for one thing, there was their size – between six and nine meters in diameter.
“Secondly, they were made of some strange metal. Everyone has written that they were made of copper, but I’m sure it isn’t copper. The thing is that even a sharpened cold chisel will not mark the ’cauldrons’ (we tried more than once). The metal doesn’t break off and can’t be hammered. On copper, a hammer would definitely have left noticeable dents. But this ’copper’ is covered over with a layer of some unknown material resembling emery. Yet it’s not an oxidation layer and not scale – it can’t be chipped or scratched, either.
“We didn’t come across shafts going down into the ground with chambers. But I did note that the vegetation around the ’cauldrons’ is anomalous – totally different from what’s growing around. It’s more opulent: large-leaved burdock; very long withes; strange grass, one and a half or two times the height of a man. In one of the ’cauldrons’, the whole group of us (six people) spent the night. We didn’t sense anything bad, and we calmly left without any sort of unpleasant occurrences. Nobody fell seriously ill afterwards. Except that three months later, one of my friends lost all his hair. And on the left side of my head (the side I slept on), three small sore spots the size of match-heads appeared. I’ve tried to get rid of them all my life, but they’re still with me today.
“None of our efforts to break off even a small piece from the strange ’cauldrons’ was successful. The only thing I did manage to bring away was a stone. Not an ordinary one, though: half of a perfect sphere, six centimeters in diameter. It was black in colour and bore no visible signs of having been worked, yet was very smooth as if polished. I picked it up from the ground inside one of those cauldrons.
“I took my souvenir of Yakutia with me to the village of Samarka, Chuguyevka district, Primorsky region (the Soviet Far East), where my parents were living in 1933. I was laid up with nothing to do until my grandmother decided to build a house. We needed to put glass in the windows and there wasn’t a glass-cutter in the entire village. I tried scoring it with the edge of that half of a stone sphere, and it turned out to cut with amazing ease. After that, my find was often used like a diamond by all our relatives and friends. In 1937 I gave the stone to my grandfather, but that autumn he was arrested and taken to Magadan where he lived on without trial until 1968 and then died. Now no-one knows where my stone got to…”
In his letter, Koretsky stresses that in 1933 his Yakut guide told him that:
“…five or ten years before, he had discovered several spherical cauldrons (they were absolutely round) that protruded high (higher than a man) out of the ground. They looked brand new. Later the hunter had seen them again, now broken and scattered.”
The area remains a profound mystery not only for scientists but for explorers and ordinary people as well.
That’s what investigative journalist and author Leslie Kean says of UFOs.
“It’s completely rational to be interested and to try to figure out what’s going on with this,” she told WTOP.
Kean co-authored a stunning article in The New York Times late last year that revealed the existence of the Pentagon’s secret project to investigate unidentified flying objects — the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
Months later, this is still earth-shaking news to those eager for the truth.
That’s because the last known government program to investigate UFO encounters — the Air Force’s Project Blue Book — officially ended almost 50 years ago in 1969.
“The researchers in this area have always speculated and wondered what is going on behind the scenes. Is there a government investigation into this? And now we know that the answer is yes,” Kean said. “It just establishes a credibility for the topic for people to know that our government takes it seriously enough to have put financial resources into it and to have studied it for all these years.”
According to the Times, $22 million was spent on AATIP from 2007 through the end of 2011. And although the funding stopped, Kean says the project did not.
“We know that this program existed, it still exists, and it investigated military cases and very significant cases of pilot encounters with these objects,” said Kean, who authored the 2010 New York Times best-selling book “UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on The Record.”
Kean wants to make something clear: Unidentified flying objects are not necessarily spacecraft piloted by extraterrestrials.
“You can’t take the leap of looking at something that’s unexplained and then assuming that it’s alien,” she said.
But one of the encounters AATIP investigated involved UFOs that appeared to do incredible things no known aircraft is capable of.
About 13 years ago, numerous members of the military spotted mystery objects off the coast of San Diego.
“These objects in this one incident in 2004 were actually observed coming in from outer space. They came in and then they went out, up into the sky. So whatever that means, that’s what happened. They were also seen able to move very, very, very fast from one space to another. Way faster than any airplane could do,” said Kean.
The Pentagon program’s conclusions, if any, are not known, and Kean says more people should be studying UFOs without fear of ridicule.
“Professional people feel like they’re going to be laughed at, and it’s the same problem for scientists and academic institutions and universities and research facilities who want to work on this topic, but they feel that it would be detrimental to their careers. So it continues to be a problem, unfortunately,” Kean said.
“But I really hope it’s changing, and I think it is.”
Editor’s note: This is the first story in a three-part series about UFOs, studies into them and local sightings.
NASA Mars Lander Arrives at Launch Site to Prep for May Liftoff
NASA Mars Lander Arrives at Launch Site to Prep for May Liftoff
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
NASA's InSight Mars lander is loaded into a C-17 cargo aircraft at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver, for shipment to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on Feb. 28, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin Space
A NASA spacecraft that will probe the deep Martian interior has arrived at its launch site to prep for its planned May liftoff.
The InSight lander touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California yesterday afternoon (Feb. 28) aboard a C-17 cargo plane, NASA officials said. InSight made the trip from the Denver facilities of the company that built it, Lockheed Martin Space Systems.
"The Air Force C-17 crew from the 21st Airlift Squadron gave us a great ride," InSight project manager Tom Hoffman, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "Next time InSight travels as high and as fast, it will be about 23 seconds into its launch, on the way to Mars." [The Mars Insight Mission in Pictures]
That launch is scheduled to take place during a five-week window that opens May 5. InSight will ride atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that lifts off from Vandenberg, in the process becoming the first planetary mission ever to launch from the U.S. West Coast, NASA officials said. (The agency's other robotic explorers have launched from Florida.)
Engineers and technicians will perform a number of tests on InSight between now and May 5, to make sure that the craft survived its trip from Colorado in good health and to get it ready for liftoff.
A truck carrying NASA's InSight spacecraft leaves Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, where the spacecraft was built and tested, on Feb. 28, 2018, headed for Buckley Air Force Base. At Buckley, InSight was loaded into a cargo plane, which flew it to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin Space
"One of the most important activities before launch is to load the spacecraft with the fuel needed for the journey to Mars," Hoffman said. "After fuel loading, the spacecraft will undergo a spin-balance test to determine precisely the center of mass. This knowledge is needed to be sure the entry and descent into the Mars atmosphere goes as planned."
If all does go according to plan, InSight — whose name is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — will touch down on Mars in November, then begin studying the Red Planet's interior using two main science instruments. One is a heat probe that will hammer itself about 16 feet (5 meters) underground, and the other is a suite of supersensitive seismometers known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS).
InSight's observations should reveal a great deal about Mars' structure and composition, leading to a better understanding of how rocky planets form and evolve, mission team members have said.
The solar-powered lander was originally scheduled to launch in March 2016, but a leak in the vacuum chamber surrounding SEIS' seismometers delayed the liftoff. (Mars and Earth align favorably for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months.)
Colorful Clouds Churn on Jupiter in Stunning NASA Juno Image
Colorful Clouds Churn on Jupiter in Stunning NASA Juno Image
By Hanneke Weitering, Space.com Staff Writer
Clouds swirl around Jupiter's south pole in this colorful image taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft on Feb. 7, 2018. Citizen scientist Gerald Gerald Eichstädt processed the image using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam.
NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this stunning image of Jupiter's south pole during a close flyby of the planet on Feb. 7.
The view reveals colorful cloud formations swirling around the south pole along with several white, oval-shaped storms known as the "string of pearls."
Citizen scientist Gerald Gerald Eichstädt created the color-enhanced view of Jupiter using data from the spacecraft's JunoCam imager. When Juno captured the image, the spacecraft was 74,896 miles (120,533 kilometers) from Jupiter's cloud tops at 84.9 degrees south latitude. [Gallery: Jupiter Shines in Scientific and Artistic Images by Citizen Scientists]
"This image is one in a series of images taken in an experiment to capture the best results for illuminated parts of Jupiter's polar region," NASA officials said in a statement.
To enhance some of the features along Jupiter's terminator, or the line where day meets night, the Juno team "adjusted JunoCam so that it would perform like a portrait photographer taking multiple photos at different exposures," NASA officials said. The team was "hoping to capture one image with the intended light balance," the officials said.
"For JunoCam to collect enough light to reveal features in Jupiter's dark twilight zone, the much brighter, illuminated dayside of Jupiter becomes overexposed with the higher exposure," the officials said.
The Juno spacecraft has been taking incredible close-up photos of Jupitersince arriving at the gas giant in 2016. The probe is also conducting research into the planet's weather, composition, magnetic fields and more.
Futurist Michio Kaku sees humans doing ballet on Mars and projecting their brains into the cosmos. And aliens? Oh, they're coming.
The only way for humans to survive is to colonize at least one other planet, possibly Mars, says futurist Michio Kaku.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA, ESA, THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA), J. BELL (ASU), AND M. WOLFF (SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE)
This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle exploring the red planet.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NASA, JPL-CALTECH, MSSS
The Apollo 14 mission in 1971, with U.S. astronauts Alan Shepard (L, first row) and Edgar Mitchell (R), was the third mission to land on the moon.
PHOTOGRAPH BY STF, AFP, GETTY IMAGES
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 10 communications satellites illuminates the Southern California sky above the Pacific Ocean.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK JOHNSON, IRONSTRING CREDIT: IRONSTRING, ALAMY LIVE NEWS
In the War of the Worlds, aliens invaded Earth to colonize it.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BFA, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
By Simon Worrall
As a child in Palo Alto, California, he built an atom smasher in the garage. He later became one of the founders of string theory. Today, with his flowing mane of silver locks, Michio Kaku is one of the most recognizable faces of science, with several bestselling books and numerous television appearances, including on the Discovery Channel and the BBC.
In his new book, The Future Of Humanity, he argues passionately that our future lies not on Earth, but in the stars.
When National Geographic caught up with him by phone at his office at City College, in New York City, he explained how billionaires like Elon Musk are transforming space travel; why laser porting may be the best way to reach other galaxies; and how one day there may be ballet dancers on Mars.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DOUBLEDAY
Right at the beginning of the book, you make the shocking prediction: “Either we must leave the Earth or we will perish.” Are humanity’s prospects really that dire? And doesn’t this play into the nihilistic feeling that there is nothing we can do to save this planet?
If you take a look at evolution on Earth, 99.9 percent of all life forms have gone extinct. When things change, either you adapt or die. That’s the law of Mother Nature. We face various hazards. First of all, we have self-inflicted problems like global warming, nuclear proliferation and bio-engineered germ warfare. Plus, Mother Nature has hurled at the Earth a number of extinction cycles. The dinosaurs, for example, didn’t have a space program. And that’s why the dinosaurs are not here today.
On the other hand, we shouldn’t use this as an excuse to pollute the Earth, or let global warming run amok. We should cure these problems without having to leave for Mars or another planet, because it’s impossible to remove the entire population of Earth to Mars. We’re talking about an insurance policy—a backup plan in case something does happen to the Earth. I once talked to Carl Sagan about this, who said, “We live in the middle of a shooting gallery with thousands of asteroids in our path that we haven’t even discovered yet. So, let’s be at least a two-planet species, as a backup plan.”
One of the beautiful images you conjure is of ballet dancing on Mars. Explain why this may one day be less fanciful than it seems.
We have the Olympics, where we have athletes that understand the laws of gravity on Earth, but once we’re on the moon and Mars, we have a totally different set of physical constraints. Here, ice skaters can’t do anything more than a quad; four rotations in the air and that’s it! No one has ever done a quint. However, on Mars the gravity is only 30 percent of Earth, so one day we may have an Olympics on Mars where people could do four, five, six, seven rotations in the air, and ballet, or acrobatics, and gymnastics. A whole new set of athletes could be formed because they are adapted to a new environment where the gravity and air pressure is lower. The astronaut Alan Shepard was the first one to golf—golf—on the moon! He snuck on a pair of golf irons. NASA was horrified, yet in the Smithsonian Museum now, you can see a replica of the golf clubs he used, to prove that interstellar sports could become a real possibility.
You use the phrase “the fourth wave of science.” Explain what this means and how it could one day make it possible to terraform Mars.
We’ve had three waves of scientific innovation. The first wave, the Industrial Revolution, gave us the steam engine, the locomotive, and factories. The second wave was electricity and magnetism, whereby we had TV, internal combustion cars, a beginning of the space program. The third revolution is high tech: computers, lasers, the Internet.
Now we have the fourth wave of innovation: artificial intelligence, biotech, and nanotech. That’s going to change the way we view Mars. Many people say Mars is cold and desolate, and there’s nothing to grow there. We can genetically modify plants and algae to thrive in the Martian atmosphere. But who’s going to do the heavy lifting? We all would like to see futuristic cities on Mars, but robots are going to become much more adapted to working in these harsh environments by the end of this century, so we expect to see robotic construction workers building the fantastic domed cities you see in science fiction novels.
Elon Musk recently launched his old Tesla sports car into space. Tell us about the “battle of the billionaires” and how they are shaping the future.
Space was very expensive back in the 1960s. That’s why, after we went to the moon, we lost interest. Now we’re talking about a new golden age of space exploration, in part because a whole fleet of Silicon Valley billionaires are fulfilling their childhood dreams, building spaceports on their own. The Falcon Heavy moon rocket launched by Space X was funded by Elon Musk’s own pocket money. It was the most powerful rocket ever and taxpayers didn’t pay one dime.
Both Musk and NASA are focused on Mars as the next challenge. Talk us through the problems we will face, and what solutions we might find.
We’re going to have to be very careful sending our astronauts to Mars. Going to the moon took only three days. You could go to the moon on Monday and come back on Friday. Going to Mars is a whole other picture. It takes nine months just to get to Mars, then you have to wait a few months for the planets to realign and then another nine months to come back. So, it’s a two-year journey where weightlessness, cosmic radiation, and micrometeorites will all be problems. Mars is also frozen, so we’re going to have to heat up the surface, which is called terraforming.
Early settlers who came to the U.S. almost 400 years ago had game to shoot, plants to raise and topsoil on which to grow crops. But we will have to bring everything to Mars ourselves. That’s why cost is so important and why we want robots to build things, genetically engineered crops to thrive in that environment, and nanotechnology to create lightweight, super-strong building materials that are pre-fabricated to create dome cities.
HOW TO TERRAFORM MARSHave you ever dreamed of living on another planet? Well it might not be as sci-fi as it sounds. In this episode of Today I Learned, astrobiologist and National Geographic Explorer Brendan Mullan lays out the blueprints for how we might terraform Mars.
Travelling to distant stars will require new forms of transportation. Tell us about the Breakthrough Starshot project and other fantastical ideas being advanced.
Once again, Silicon Valley billionaires are opening up their checkbooks to the tune of $100 million to build the first starship to go to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. We’ve been brainwashed by Hollywood to think that you have to have a gigantic starship, like The Enterprise, with heroic captains, like Captain Kirk. But the first starship that goes to Proxima Centauri could be the size of a postage stamp—a computer chock full of sensors and cameras, with a parachute on it. You inflate the parachute by shooting a laser beam at it from Earth, maybe 800 megawatts of energy, which would shoot these tiny parachutes up to 20 percent the speed of light. That is doable, believe it or not. So in just 20 years some of them may reach the nearest star, using off-the-shelf technology. Looking further into the future, physicists are already dreaming about the post-chemical rocket era when we might use antimatter, fusion power, or ramjet reactors in order to travel at 50 percent the speed of light, which could take us to the stars.
Another problem with deep-space travel is that it may take hundreds of light-years to reach your destination. You suggest deep freezing astronauts, then thawing them out at the other end. To quote John McEnroe: You can’t be serious, can you?
The stars are extremely far away, but one day we hope to use advanced physics to go faster than the speed of light—warp drive. Until we get warp drive, we’re stuck with rockets that are below the speed of light and the planets we have discovered that are Earth-like would take hundreds of years to reach. This means we have to find the secret of extending the human lifespan or learn how to freeze ourselves. Some companies already offer to freeze your body so that when you are thawed out, there’ll be cures for cancer and other diseases. Don’t believe it. These companies, I think, are bogus. However, it’s a possibility that has to be looked at.
We’ve discovered about 60 genes that seem to influence the lifespan of human beings and we know that certain genes allow animals to live for centuries. The Greenland shark, for example, lives to be over 400 years of age. So genetics may make it possible to slow down the aging process.
Your own preferred solution is what you call laser porting. Explain what this is—and how the Human Connectome Projectmay be laying the foundations.
The first big scientific project was the Manhattan Project, which gave us the atomic bomb. The second was the Human Genome Project, which gave us the human genome. The third could be the Connectome Project. Many nations, including the U.S., have said that the brain is the key to understanding mental health, depression, and suicide. All that could perhaps be unraveled if we understand the connectome, which is a map of the entire brain.
We expect to have this perhaps by the end of this century. But once we have it, what do we do with it? We could look at mental illness, but we could also put it on a laser beam and shoot it into outer space. In one second, you’d be on the moon; in 20 minutes you’re on Mars; and in years you’re on the nearest star. So laser porting is perhaps the most efficient way to explore the galaxy without booster rockets, radiation dangers, or problems from asteroid impacts. You just laser port yourself!
Let’s end with the million-dollar question: Will we one day make contact with another civilization in outer space? If so, when? And do you agree with Stephen Hawking, who warned of the dangers of contact?
I definitely think we have to take his warning to heart because we will one day encounter other terrestrial life forms. They’re probably going to be thousands of years more advanced than us. They’re not going to want to plunder us for resources because there are a lot of uninhabited planets out there, like Mars, that they can plunder without having to deal with restive natives like us. The main threat is that we might be in the way. In the novel The War of The Worlds, the Martians wanted to take over the Earth not because they were evil or because they didn’t like Homo sapiens. They had to remove us so Martians could thrive on Earth and terraform it so it looked like Mars.
We have discovered 4,000 planets so far in the galaxy, and we now know that on average every star in the galaxy has a planet of some kind. So I think it’s inevitable that we’re going to bump into one of these advanced civilizations and it will change world history. Not like Cortez meeting Montezuma and shattering Aztec civilization in a matter of months. The conquistadors had a hidden agenda. They wanted to plunder the gold of the Aztecs. I don’t think the aliens will want that. And, hopefully, there’ll be a mentor to show us the way to the future without having to go to war and resort to savagery and barbarism.
Une caméra embarquée a récemment filmé un étrange OVNI triangulaire. Pour les experts, il s’agirait d’un TR-3B, un mystérieux appareil top secret développé par le gouvernement américain.
Dans cette vidéo, on peut voir cet objet planer dans le ciel nocturne à une vitesse régulière. Se déplaçant de gauche à droite, l’OVNI semble voler en arrière ! En zoomant dessus, on remarque que cet engin possède une forme parfaitement triangulaire ainsi que trois lumières à chacune de ses extrémités.
Les images ont été mises en ligne sur la chaîne YouTube UFO Today et sont rapidement devenues virales, quelques heures seulement après leur publication.
La vidéo est accompagnée de l’explication suivante : « Le 26 janvier, cette incroyable vidéo a été prise à partir d’une caméra embarquée. »
« La séquence nous montre un OVNI TR-3B volant dans les airs. Cela pourrait constituer la meilleure preuve de l’existence des OVNI de type TR-3B. »
« L’objet triangulaire arrive de la gauche de l’écran et vous pouvez voir que cet objet n’a pas de lumières clignotantes comme un avion normal devrait avoir. »
« Il vole à très basse altitude ce qui serai très étrange pour un avion conventionnel. »
Le TR-3 Black Manta est le nom que les théoriciens de la conspiration ont donné à un avion de surveillance développé par l’United States Air Force. Cet engin aurait été créé dans le cadre d’un Black Project.
Il existe peu de preuves quant à l’existence de cet engin. Les preuves les plus convaincantes proviennent de témoins ainsi que de plusieurs observations rapportées au-dessus d’Antelope Valley, une zone désertique dans le sud de la Californie, aux États-Unis.
Pour les internautes, il s’agit d’une confirmation que l’engin est actuellement utilisé par l’armée.
Des ufologues affirment que la NASA ou le complexe industriel militaire aurait développé ce genre d’appareil en étudiant des engins extraterrestres recueillis à la suite de crashs d’OVNI.
« La plupart des objets que nous voyons dans le ciel sont de fabrication humaine, mais il y a un petit pourcentage qui reste inexpliqué. »
« Bien sûr, c’est un TR-3B, les États-Unis ont construit environ 60 de ces choses. »
« Ils sont alimentés par l’énergie nucléaire et constituent des avions espions militaires. »
Florida could use some good news these days and this certainly fits the bill – at least for the Gulf Coast city of Venice and archeologists. On February 28, Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced in a press release that a human tooth found by a diver in 2016 has led archaeologists to an unprecedented 7,000-year-old Native American ancestral burial site in the Gulf of Mexico near Venice.
“Research indicates that during this time period [Early Archaic], when sea levels were much lower, a small inland freshwater pond was present and ancestors of Florida’s indigenous people interred their deceased there. As sea levels rose, the pond was covered by the Gulf of Mexico; despite the flooding, the peat bottom of the pond remained intact. Peat slows the process of organic decay, which allowed the site to stay well preserved.”
The burial site covers about 32,000 square feet (3,000 square meters) off the coast of Manasota Key and has been named Manasota Key Offshore. The site is protected under Florida law and it is illegal to excavate and/or remove any material or human remains from the site without authorization. Underwater researchers visiting the site have so far found remains of six people, carved wooden stakes and pieces of clothing and radiocarbon dating shows them to be about 7,000 years old.
How did the graveyard end up under 21 feet of water in just 7,000 years? Good question, but first make the total 30 feet (9.1 meters) because researchers determined that the original burial pond was ten feet ABOVE sea level when the interments occurred. Pond burials were practiced during what is known as the Archaic or Meso-American period in North America’s pre-Columbian history, lasting from about 8000 to 1000 BCE. The culture located in the northern Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida areas buried their dead in the peat at the bottom of shallow ponds, which helped preserve the remains found off the coast of Manasota Key and in other ponds found inland (the Windover site in Titusville is a well-known example). Manasota Key Offshore is the first found underwater, which means more evidence of the land and the culture may have been preserved.
Manasota Key
That 30-foot water rise was the result of the global climate change the ended the last ice age beginning 14,000 years ago. At that time, the Florida land mass was much wider than it is today and many native settlements from the Archaic period were eventually underwater. Archeologists generally ignored looking for remnants and artifacts of these settlements, believing that the sea water would have destroyed the human remains and their living areas. Manasota Key Offshore is proof that this isn’t the case and will provide new incentives to look for more evidence of these prehistoric Meso-American peoples.
Not to mention learn what will happen if the rest of Florida ends up underwater.
Ex-Canadian Defense Minister: US Has Technology for Shooting Down UFOs
Ex-Canadian Defense Minister: US Has Technology for Shooting Down UFOs
ufo paul hellyer
Paul Hellyer, a whistleblower and alien conspiracy theorist, says that the US not only traded technology with aliens for years, but even possesses technology capable of shooting down extraterrestrial spaceships.
New Death Bed UFO Testimony from High Level Canadian Official
The United States has developed technology capable of downing alien spaceships, says Hellyer, a 94-year old Canadian engineer, politician, writer, commentator and alien conspiracy theorist.
"I do believe they have developed two or three kinds of weapons that are capable of disabling and bringing down UFOs," he told the Daily Star.
According to Hellyer, the United States has been exchanging technology and even salvaging technology from the advanced lifeforms.
"That is the primary purpose of the anti-ballistic missile shield, the weapons are ones that can be aimed in either direction to control the situation on Earth but equally, if not more important, to shoot down UFOs," he told the Daily Star.
What makes this claim particularly noteworthy is the fact that Hellyer was once minister of national defense of Canada from 1963 to 1967 and minister of transport from 1967 to 1969.
In 2014, Hellyer told RT that there are at least four different alien species that have visited Earth for thousands of years. Some of them are actually interacting with the US military at an Air Force base in Nevada. According to Hellyer, the US military have been exchanging technology with "Tall Whites," as he describes the alien race, since the 1960s.
According to the Daily Star, he cited former US Air Force serviceman Charles James Hall, who has written about his alleged encounters with aliens at a Nevada base, as having told Hellyer they had a hangar for a "mother ship that came into the side of a mountain on the nights of a full moon."
However, despite having weapons capable of shooting down a UFO, there is no need to do that, as the aliens are actually friendly and are more concerned about the way humans treat their planet.
"They are friendly, most observers believe, so why would we shoot at friends?" he asked.
It's also possible that the US has not shot any UFOs because, as Hellyer said in 2013 in another interview for RT, that would spark an "interstellar war." On the other hand, if the alien world turned out to have oil…
'Aliens could share more tech with us, if we warmonger less' - Former Canada Defense Minister
Paul Hellyer In-Depth interview on Disclosure 2017
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VS beschikt over technologie om buitenaardse schepen neer te halen. Oud-minister doet onthullingen
VS beschikt over technologie om buitenaardse schepen neer te halen. Oud-minister doet onthullingen
De VS heeft niet alleen jarenlang technologie uitgewisseld met aliens, maar beschikt ook over wapens waarmee buitenaardse ruimteschepen kunnen worden neergehaald. Dat heeft de Canadese oud-minister van Defensie Paul Hellyer gezegd.
“Ze hebben volgens mij twee of drie soorten wapens die in staat zijn om UFO’s uit te schakelen en neer te halen,” citeert het Russische persbureau Sputnik de 94-jarige ex-minister.
“Dat is ook het primaire doel van het raketschild,” vervolgde hij. “Die wapens kunnen worden gebruikt om UFO’s neer te schieten.”
Vier soorten
Hellyer was tussen 1963 en 1967 minister van Defensie en van 1967 tot 1969 minister van Handel.
Enkele jaren geleden zei hij tegen zender RT dat tenminste vier soorten aliens de aarde al duizenden jaren bezoeken.
Sommige buitenaardsen onderhouden op een vliegbasis in Nevada contact met het Amerikaanse leger, zo zei hij.
Jaren zestig
“Het Amerikaanse leger wisselt al sinds de jaren zestig technologie uit met de ‘Tall Whites’,” vervolgde hij.
Hellyer zei dat Charles James Hall, die werkzaam was voor de Amerikaanse luchtmacht, hem had verteld dat hij aliens op de basis had gezien.
Hall zei dat hij een hangar voor een ‘moederschip’ had gezien. Bij volle maan vloog dat schip via de zijkant van een berg naar binnen, zei hij.
Vrienden
Volgens Hellyer hebben we wapens die UFO’s kunnen neerhalen helemaal niet nodig, omdat de aliens vreedzaam zijn en simpelweg bezorgd zijn over de manier waarop mensen omgaan met hun planeet.
“Volgens de meeste waarnemers zijn ze vriendelijk, dus waarom zouden we op vrienden schieten?” vroeg hij zich af.
UFO Crashes On Deserted Island And Leaves Trail Many KM Behind It! March 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
UFO Crashes On Deserted Island And Leaves Trail Many KM Behind It! March 2018, Video, UFO Sighting News.
Date of sighting: March 5, 2018
Location of sighting: 54°39'44.62"S 36°11'42.47"W This is awesome. A possible UFO crash site has been found out in the secluded area of the ocean in the center of an island covered in snow and ice. As it crashed it left and even trail all the way behind it. We know this is no icebreaker ship, because its in the middle of the island! Its over 10km away from the ocean! So...something appears to have fallen on the soft snow, attempting a safe landing. Excellent report bySecureTeam10 of Youtube. Scott C. Waring
Mystery: 60 Birds found dead with their hearts torn out!
Mystery: 60 Birds found dead with their hearts torn out!
Over the past seventy years, thousands of animals have been found killed and mutilated, usually left lying on their sides, with multiple organs, like hearts, eyes, tongues, lungs, removed through precise cuts and no blood markers and so far there is no answer to this mystery.
Some days ago a similar event has occurred in Baiirro Alto, in Curitiba, Brazil where sixty birds were found dead in a chicken coop, a mysterious situation that left the residents of Baiiro Alto, quite frightened.
Credit image: Colaboração
Only two chickens were left alive. The other birds - among geese, ducks and chickens - had their hearts torn out.
Credit image: Colaboração
The hen owner found all the dead animals, with precise cuts on the chest, back and neck. In addition, no blood markers were identified in on-site burglary signs.
"I have no idea what might have happened."
"I have never seen such a thing."
"If there were two, three chickens, I could say it was a dog, but there were a lot of birds, "said the hen owner, Sidnei dos Santos to Massanews.
Another aspect of the mysterious death is the fact that neither Santos nor the neighbors heard any noise that indicated the presence of some person in the place. "They always made noise when people were around"
Are the aliens to blame for the death of the 60 birds?
Dead birds mystery in metro Detroit
Why Did Nearly 4,000 Birds Die In The Yolo Bypass Last Week?
Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains
Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains
CreditChristoph Hitz
When you drive toward an intersection, the sight of the light turning red will (or should) make you step on the brake. This action happens thanks to a chain of events inside your head.
Your eyes relay signals to the visual centers in the back of your brain. After those signals get processed, they travel along a pathway to another region, the premotor cortex, where the brain plans movements.
Now, imagine that you had a device implanted in your brain that could shortcut the pathway and “inject” information straight into your premotor cortex.
That may sound like an outtake from “The Matrix.” But now two neuroscientists at the University of Rochester say they have managed to introduce information directly into the premotor cortex of monkeys. The researchers published the results of the experiment on Thursday in the journal Neuron.
Although the research is preliminary, carried out in just two monkeys, the researchers speculated that further research might lead to brain implants for people with strokes.
“You could potentially bypass the damaged areas and deliver stimulation to the premotor cortex,” said Kevin A. Mazurek, a co-author of the study. “That could be a way to bridge parts of the brain that can no longer communicate.”
In order to study the premotor cortex, Dr. Mazurek and his co-author, Dr. Marc H. Schieber, trained two rhesus monkeys to play a game.
The monkeys sat in front of a panel equipped with a button, a sphere-shaped knob, a cylindrical knob, and a T-shaped handle. Each object was ringed by LED lights. If the lights around an object switched on, the monkeys had to reach out their hand to it to get a reward — in this case, a refreshing squirt of water.
Each object required a particular action. If the button glowed, the monkeys had to push it. If the sphere glowed, they had to turn it. If the T-shaped handle or cylinder lit up, they had to pull it.
After the monkeys learned how to play the game, Dr. Mazurek and Dr. Schieber had them play a wired version. The scientists placed 16 electrodes in each monkey’s brain, in the premotor cortex.
Each time a ring of lights switched on, the electrodes transmitted a short, faint burst of electricity. The patterns varied according to which object the researchers wanted the monkeys to manipulate.
As the monkeys played more rounds of the game, the rings of light dimmed. At first, the dimming caused the monkeys to make mistakes. But then their performance improved.
Eventually the lights went out completely, yet the monkeys were able to use only the signals from the electrodes in their brains to pick the right object and manipulate it for the reward. And they did just as well as with the lights.
This hints that the sensory regions of the brain, which process information from the environment, can be bypassed altogether. The brain can devise a response by receiving information directly, via electrodes.
Neurologists have long known that applying electric current to certain parts of the brain can make people involuntarily jerk certain parts of their bodies. But this is not what the monkeys were experiencing.
Dr. Mazurek and Dr. Schieber were able to rule out this possibility by seeing how short they could make the pulses. With a jolt as brief as a fifth of a second, the monkeys could still master the game without lights. Such a pulse was too short to cause the monkeys to jerk about.
“The stimulation must be producing some conscious perception,” said Paul Cheney, a neurophysiologist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who was not involved in the new study.
But what exactly is that something? It’s hard to say. “After all, you can’t easily ask the monkey to tell you what they have experienced,” Dr. Cheney said.
Dr. Schieber speculated that the monkeys “might feel something on their skin. Or they might see something. Who knows what?”
What makes the finding particularly intriguing is that the signals the scientists delivered into the monkey brains had no underlying connection to the knob, the button, the handle or the cylinder.
Once the monkeys started using the signals to grab the right objects, the researchers shuffled them into new assignments. Now different electrodes fired for different objects — and the monkeys quickly learned the new rules.
“This is not a prewired part of the brain for built-in movements, but a learning engine,” said Michael A. Graziano, a neuroscientist at Princeton University who was not involved in the study.
Dr. Mazurek and Dr. Schieber only implanted small arrays of electrodes into the monkeys. Engineers are working on implantable arrays that might include as many as 1,000 electrodes. So it may be possible one day to transmit far more complex packages of information into the premotor cortex.
Dr. Schieber speculated that someday scientists might be able to use such advanced electrodes to help people who suffer brain damage. Strokes, for instance, can destroy parts of the brain along the pathway from sensory regions to areas where the brain makes decisions and sends out commands to the body.
Implanted electrodes might eavesdrop on neurons in healthy regions, such as the visual cortex, and then forward information into the premotor cortex.
“When the computer says, ‘You’re seeing the red light,’ you could say, ‘Oh, I know what that means — I’m supposed to put my foot on the brake,’” said Dr. Schieber. “You take information from one good part of the brain and inject it into a downstream area that tells you what to do.”
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04-03-2018
De 'nabije' ster Betelgeuze staat op ontploffen, maar moet je daar wakker van liggen?
De 'nabije' ster Betelgeuze staat op ontploffen, maar moet je daar wakker van liggen?
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Kunnen supernova’s een gevaar vormen voor het leven op aarde?
Op zo’n 600 lichtjaar afstand van de aarde bevindt zich een rode superreus: Betelgeuze. Waarschijnlijk heb je deze ster op een heldere avond al wel eens aan de hemel zien staan. Hij valt op tussen al die andere lichtpuntjes, omdat hij een beetje rood van kleur is. Bovendien brandt de ster heel fel. Dat laatste komt echter met een prijs: hierdoor zal de ster ook relatief snel zijn brandstof opmaken en maar een korte levensduur hebben. De naar schatting acht miljoen jaar oude ster zal dan ook (naar astronomische begrippen) spoedig een supernova worden. En als het eenmaal zover is, kan dat ons mensen hier op aarde eigenlijk niet ontgaan. De explosie die dan ontstaat, is naar verwachting zelfs op klaarlichte dag vanaf de aarde te bewonderen!
Het ontstaan van een supernova
Supernova’s zijn de grootste explosies die in de ruimte voorkomen. Ze ontstaan doordat er een verandering optreedt in de kern van een ster. Die verandering kan het resultaat zijn van twee verschillende ontwikkelingen. In het geval van Betelgeuze treden de veranderingen op, doordat de ster door zijn brandstof heen is. Zonder die bron van energie kan de ster niet meer opboksen tegen de zwaartekracht en een deel van zijn eigen massa stroomt richting die kern. Die wordt steeds zwaarder en zwaarder, tot deze ineenstort. Dat resulteert in een gigantische explosie, oftewel supernova. Een supernova kan daarnaast ook ontstaan in een systeem dat uit twee sterren bestaat die om elkaar heen draaien. Hierbij steelt de ene ster materie van de andere ster, waardoor deze uiteindelijk zo zwaar wordt, dat deze explodeert.
Eerdere supernova’s Wanneer Betelgeuze ontploft, is dat niet de eerste supernova die in de nabijheid van de aarde ontstaat. In 2016 is een studie verschenen die aantoonde dat de aarde tussen 3,2 en 1,7 miljoen jaar geleden herhaaldelijk gebombardeerd werd met radioactieve isotopen, afkomstig van supernova’s in de buurt. “Het suggereert dat er sprake was van een serie supernova’s, waarbij de één na de ander ontplofte,” zo stelde onderzoeker Anton Wallner in een persbericht. Geschat werd dat deze sterren op dat moment zo’n 300 lichtjaar van de aarde verwijderd waren. Welke gevolgen de ontploffingen voor de aarde hadden, konden Wallner en collega’s niet achterhalen. Maar er zijn voorzichtige aanwijzingen dat de explosies niet ongemerkt aan het leven op aarde voorbijtrokken. Zo wijst Wallner erop dat het wel heel toevallig is dat deze supernova’s samenvallen met de periode “waarin de aarde afkoelde en het Plioceen plaatsmaakte voor het Pleistoceen”.
Betelgeuze is zo’n 100.000 keer helderder dan onze zon en dit is de scherpste foto die ooit van de ster is gemaakt. De foto werd vorig jaar zomer vrijgegeven door ESO.
Afbeelding: ALMA (ESO / NAOJ / NRAO) / E. O’Gorman / P. Kervella.
Mogelijke gevolgen Wallner en collega’s suggereren in hun studie dat een supernova voor grote veranderingen op aarde kan zorgen. Het is niet heel verbazingwekkend. We hebben het hier tenslotte over zware sterren die exploderen en daarbij tal van zware elementen en allerhande straling de ruimte in slingeren. Maar hoe kan dat nu precies voor problemen zorgen op aarde? Er zijn verschillende scenario’s te bedenken, zo blijkt onder meer uit een onderzoek dat vorig jaar verscheen. Zo kan een ster die in de buurt van de aarde ontploft leiden tot:
meer bosbranden. Wanneer een ster ontploft, komt er kosmische straling vrij. En als de ster redelijk dicht bij de aarde in de buurt staat, kan die kosmische straling in theorie vrij diep in de atmosfeer doordringen. Daarbij creëert deze als het ware een ‘pad’ door de atmosfeer en op dat pad worden atomen van hun elektronen ontdaan. Het maakt de weg vrij voor bliksemschichten die zich vanuit wolken naar de grond haasten. “Het resultaat zou een significante toename in bliksemschichten zijn: de belangrijkste oorzaak van bosbranden (op mensen na dan),” aldus onderzoeker Brian Thomas, één van de auteurs van het hierboven aangehaalde paper. Die bosbranden kunnen ervoor zorgen dat complete ecosystemen op losse schroeven komen te staan.
klimaatverandering.Wanneer er middels kosmische straling meer blikseminslagen zijn en wereldwijd grote bosbranden ontstaan, kan dat bijvoorbeeld leiden tot afkoeling. De bosbranden brengen namelijk roetdeeltjes in de lucht, waardoor zonlicht niet of nauwelijks meer het oppervlak kan bereiken.
kanker. De kosmische straling kan ook een directe impact hebben op het leven op aarde: “De duidelijkste consequentie die het baden in kosmische straling voor het leven op aarde heeft, is een toename van kanker en het sneller ontstaan van mutaties,” vertelt Thomas in een persbericht.
ernstige aantasting van de ozonlaag. Wanneer een ster ontploft, kan er ook gammastraling vrijkomen. Deze straling leidt tot chemische reacties hoog in de atmosfeer, die weer leiden tot de afbraak van ozon. Deze ozonlaag beschermt ons tegen (kankerverwekkende) UV-straling én kosmische straling en zo kan gammastraling de eerder genoemde problemen – die stuk voor stuk het resultaat zijn van kosmische straling – dus nog verder vergroten.
een verstoord ritme. Wanneer een supernova nabij de aarde ontploft, zal er gedurende ongeveer een maand een blauw licht aan de hemel staan. “Dat klinkt niet heel ernstig, maar er is aangetoond dat het voor bijna alle levende organismen een probleem is,” vertelt onderzoeker Adrian Melott die eveneens aan de hierboven aangehaalde studie meewerkte. Het gooit de productie van een hormoon (melatonine) dat van cruciaal belang is voor het dag- en nachtritme overhoop.
Een artistieke impressie van een supernova.
Afbeelding: NASA / CXC / M.Weiss.
Het draait allemaal om afstand Het moge duidelijk zijn: supernova’s kunnen een nachtmerrie zijn voor een levende planeet zoals de onze. Of een supernova ook echt in staat is tot het bezorgen van de hierboven beschreven ellende is echter voornamelijk afhankelijk van de afstand waarop deze zich bevindt. Wat ons natuurlijk brengt bij de vraag: hoever moet je bij een supernova uit de buurt blijven? Daar zijn astronomen het nog niet helemaal over eens. In een paper dat in 2003 verscheen, stelden onderzoekers dat een supernova die binnen 25 lichtjaar van de aarde ontstond, zou leiden tot massa-extincties op aarde. Maar het onderzoek dat vorig jaar verscheen, suggereert dat ook supernova’s voorbij 25 lichtjaar afstand behoorlijk gevaarlijk kunnen zijn. “We weten het niet precies,” moest Melott in een persbericht bekennen. “Maar we denken meer aan 40 tot 50 lichtjaar.” In hun studie bogen Melott en collega’s zich over een supernova-explosie die zo’n 2,6 miljoen jaar geleden plaatsvond, waarschijnlijk op zo’n 150 lichtjaar afstand van de aarde. Het leidde niet tot massa-extincties, maar mogelijk wel tot grote veranderingen op aarde. Zo zijn er aanwijzingen dat bossen in Afrika – mogelijk onder invloed van de door de supernova ingegeven bosbranden – verdwenen en plaatsmaakten voor graslanden. “En dat kan zelfs weer van invloed zijn geweest op de evolutie van de mens,” denkt Melott.
Betelgeuze Terug naar Betelgeuze: de dichtstbijzijnde ster die op relatief korte termijn (naar schatting binnen 100.000 jaar) een supernova dreigt te worden. De ster staat op een veilige afstand van zo’n 600 lichtjaar en is dus geen reden voor slapeloze nachten. Maar er zijn meer supernova-kandidaten in de buurt. Zo wordt IK Pegasi B bijvoorbeeld vaak genoemd. De ster – onderdeel van een dubbelstersysteem – bevindt zich op dit moment op slechts 150 lichtjaar afstand van de aarde en is daarmee de dichtstbijzijnde supernova-kandidaat. Het goede nieuws is echter dat deze ster niet – zoals Betelgeuze – op ontploffen staat. Het kan nog miljoenen jaren duren voor deze voldoende massa van zijn begeleider heeft afgepakt om te kunnen exploderen. En – nog meer goed nieuws – dit dubbelstersysteem beweegt bij ons vandaan. Dus wanneer deze eindelijk klaar is om te ontploffen, is deze zo ver van ons verwijderd dat we er weinig van te vrezen hebben. Hetzelfde geldt voor Spica, een supernova-kandidaat op 250 lichtjaar afstand.
Van Betelgeuze en collega’s hoef je dan ook niet wakker te liggen. En dat is ook wat Melott aan een ieder die hem naar de rode superreus vraagt, meedeelt. “Ik vertel ze dat ze zich zorgen moeten maken over klimaatverandering en kernoorlogen, maar niet over dit soort dingen.”
The conspiracy theorists spotted the strange shape in footage taken from Google Earth
The shape, which was seen on South Georgia Island – a Brit territory with a population of 30, could be a crazed spacecraft created by an alien civilisation, it has been claimed.
The “vehicle” was spotted by a user of a well-known alien site, who posted the video on Youtube.
Using satellite mapping, web theorists at Secureteam10 zoomed in on the unknown mass near the 10,000ft tall Mount Paget.
GOOGLE EARTH
SPACESHIP? Alien hunters claim this is proof of a crashed spaceship in Antarctica
It appears to have skidded for a considerable distance before grounding to a halt.
But some people who watched the vid appear not to be convinced and have their own theories about what the object is.
One viewer who claimed he had been station on the island with the Royal Navy punctured the ET theory.
GOOGLE EARTH
CAPTURED: The sight was seen in footage taken by Google Earth
“Santa had a little to much to drink”
Non-believer
Rain606 said: "The research station on the island asked us to fly a photographic recce over the entire island to document population and locations of reindeer.
"As the photographer on that recce, I can confirm 100 per cent that what you see in the image is just the result of a glacial slide. Sorry."
Others saw a funny side to the clip.
One joked: "Santa had a little to much to drink".
GOOGLE EARTH
REMOTE: The South Georgia Island is home for 30 people
The outlandish video has been viewed more than 100,000 times.
It’s not the first time conspiracy theorists have claimed to have spotted an alien civilisation on Google Earth.
Google Maps is one of the most useful tools available on the internet, allowing people to visit all areas of the world from the comfort of their own home.
GOOGLE EARTH
DRAG: It appears the "vehicle" landed and was dragged a fair distance
But as well as its informative qualities, the site also provides countless entertaining images.
Alongside the ordinary looking residential streets and national parks is everything from the amusing to the downright bizarre.
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Google Maps: Is this proof of alien existence? UFO hunters claim to find underwater base
Google Maps: Is this proof of alien existence? UFO hunters claim to find underwater base
GOOGLE MAPS can be a great tool for exploring different parts of the world without actually having to travel there. But the web mapping service has picked up both the weird and wonderful during its existence, including unusual objects UFO hunters have claimed are alien bases.
Argentinian alien researcher, Marcelo Igazusta, believed he’d found evidence of a “giant pyramid” beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean back in 2016
Argentinian alien researcher, Marcelo Igazusta, believed he’d found evidence of a “giant pyramid” beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean back in 2016, and that it could be an alien underwater base.
The sighting was detailed on Scott Waring’s blog UFO Sightings Daily.
The object in the sea, which can be found at coordinates 12°8'1.49”N 119°35'26.39”W, is reportedly 8.5 miles across its base.
Whether it is actually an underwater alien base is unknown.
GOOGLE
Google Maps: Argentinian alien researcher Marcelo Igazusta believes it's an alien base
GOOGLE
Google Maps: The object in the sea is reportedly 8.5 miles across its base
But Scott said the discovery was incredible all the same.
He said: “Even if this is not a UFO that landed in the ocean that was being used as an alien base, it still is a monumental discovery.
“An 8.5-mile pyramid… biggest the world has ever known, and it’s right off of Mexico, near the ancient Mayan and Aztec pyramids. Humans could never have built such a construction. Only aliens could accomplish making such a massive structure.”
Another image that appears on Google Maps shows a Star Wars-like structure in the middle of the Egyptian desert.
GOOGLE
Google Maps: A Star Wars-like structure in Egypt also sparked the interest of UFO hunters
The unique sight triggered a debate among UFO hunters who claimed the unique building has links to UFO research.
Some have even described it as a “secret UFO base”.
The structure’s existence was noted by SecureTeam10, a source for “UFO sighing videos”.
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This Week's Top Space Stories
This Week's Top Space Stories
By SPACE.com Staff
Photo Credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa/Carnegie Institution for Science, NASA/SDO, NASA/JPL
The Week's Top Space Stories
The Expedition 54 crew makes a safe landing from the International Space Station, a new species of "water bear" was discovered in a Japanese parking lot and researchers found the imprints of the universe's first stars. These are some of this week's top stories from Space.com.
Photo Credit: PTScientists via collectSPACE.com
1. The moon is getting a 4G network.
Vodafone Germany will work with Nokia to build the first 4G network on the moon in 2019. This network will support PTScientists, a private moon mission development team from Berlin that hopes to launch a lander and two small rovers for the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing.
2. Expedition 54 crew makes safe landing from space
Two U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut returned safely to Earth on Tuesday (Feb. 27). The Expedition 54 crew completed a total of 168 days aboard the International Space Station. Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA, alongside Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos, re-entered the atmosphere inside a Soyuz MS-06 capsule and landed in Kazakhstan at 9:31 p.m. EST (0231 GMT).
3. New "water bear" species found in Japanese parking lot
Kazuharu Arakawa found a new species of tardigrade, also known as a "water bear," in a sample of moss he scraped from the parking lot outside his apartment in Tsuruoka City, Japan. The tardigrade biology researcher thinks that the unusual-shaped eggs of this species, which have long filaments, may help the vulnerable cargo attach to where it's laid. This minuscule animal can withstand extreme radiation and even the vacuum of space.
4. NASA envisions astronauts on the moon in ten years.
On Feb. 20, NASA's acting administrator Robert Lightfoot spoke at a Space Transportation Association event, revealing NASA's newest vision for lunar exploration. This includes sending astronauts to the moon's surface by the late 2020s. The Lunar Orbiting Platform, according to Lightfoot, would serve as a place from which astronauts would transit back and forth from the moon.
Photo Credit: Sarah Stewart/UC Davis based on NASA rendering
5. First came the moon, then came Earth?
Scientists have developed a new theory about Earth's formation which suggests that the moon formed about 1,000 years before the Earth. This theory helps explain certain lunar features, and is the first model that matches the pattern of the moon's composition, according to the research team.
Black holes may not be entirely impenetrable after all. A new paper published on Jan. 17 suggests that at certain points along a black hole's event horizon, the boundary after which matter is thought to be destroyed and impossible to study, there may be tiny spots where Einstein's theories of gravity break down and finite measurements no longer apply. They are hypothetical places of entry into a black hole where an observer would not be destroyed instantly.
Photo Credit: N.R. Fuller, National Science Foundation
7. Signs of the universe's earliest stars spotted
Researchers finally found evidence that stars were shining as early as 180 million years after the Big Bang. Finding their signals involved looking at the cosmic background radiation; this indirect method was necessary because the further back in time you go, the more difficult it gets to spot a star directly with a space telescope, for instance.
8. New Sally Ride stamps will be issued this spring
On May 23, 2018, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will issue its commemorative Forever stamp to honor Astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly to space. The USPS also set April 6, 2018 as the first day of issue for a stamp series dedicated to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.
Photo Credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa/Carnegie Institution for Science, NASA/SDO, NASA/JPL
9. Nearby star flays its planet with a superflare
If there was life on the rocky planet circling the star closest to the sun, Proxima Centauri, a recent finding does not bode well for its existence now on this planet. The red dwarf parent star blasted Proxima b with a powerful solar flare, whose high-energy radiation would have scorched any existing atmosphere or ocean.
10. Curiosity successfully tests out new drill moves
NASA engineers have been working for 15 months to reprogram the Mars rover Curiosity so that it can drill Martian rocks using a new technique. The drill instrument on Curiosity's robotic arm has not been used since 2016, and on Monday (Feb. 26) it bored a half-inch hole into a target rock on its trial run.
Mythological hybrids are legendary creatures combining body parts of more than one species, one of which is often human.
Since ancient times there has been a fascination with the idea of creatures who are half human and half animal. The strength of this archetype can be seen in the persistence of modern tales of werewolves, vampires, different monster and horror characters.
Ancient myths include many monstrous beings. Some resemble hybrids between different species, while others are of the same species but having un-natural extra heads or limbs.
The Sanskrit epics of India feature gods in the form of elephants, monkeys, and snakes. The Sumerians depicted gods with bird heads and wings, Egyptians did portray many of the gods with animal features.
Let’s have a look at 12 of the most bizarre hybrid mythical creatures from ancient history:
1 – Ammit (Egyptian Mythology)
Ammit
Ammit or Ammut is translated as the ‘Soul Eater’, and was claimed to be an underworld-dwelling Ancient Egyptian goddess/demon who personified divine retribution. With an anatomy of a lion, hippopotamus and a crocodile, she waited to devour the hearts of the unworthy people, thus, cursing their ’empty’ souls to roam aimlessly for eternity. She epitomized the collective fear of Egyptians that was apparently pertained to ‘second death’.
2 – Buraq (Islamic Mythology)
Buraq
The dome of rock is a spot venerated by Muslims as they consider it sacred because from there Prophet Mohammad rose to heaven on a supposedly fantastical white-hued, horse-like creature named Buraq. It was apparently half mule, half donkey and had wings.
In the Hindu Mythology, Narsimha was one of the 10 avatars of Lord Vishnu. Gajasimha is probably a variant in that being, who was half human and half lion. Gajasimha is depicted as half elephant, half lion, where Elephant is the representation of Lord Ganesha.
It is signified as the primordial ancestor of human beings with four eyes, serpent like body and humongous wings. The Hatuibwari was most probably worshiped as a cosmic creature, and is described in the folklore of Melanasia.
This half-horse and half-rooster featured creature has depictions as old as 3,000 years. Some speculate it to have originated from the Middle Eastern folklores and some claim it to be an alternative representation of the renowned winged-horse Pegasus.
6 – Khepri (Egyptian Mythology)
Khepri
Usually depicted as a man with a beetle head in Ancient Egyptian funerary papyri, it is symbolic of the god epitomizing the forces that moved the sun across the vast expanse of the sky. Derived from the Egyptian word ‘Kheper’ meaning ‘to change’, this creature derives its connection from the Scarab Beetles, who rolled balls of dung across the rigorous desert surface, while the young beetles emerged from inside the dung, from the eggs laid by the parent.
7 – Matsya (Indian Mythology)
Matsya
With the head of a human and underpart of a fish, Matsya is claimed to be one of the avatars of Vishnu. Also, in the popular Noah’s Arc depicting from the Bible and the story of Manu from the Vedic literatures who made an arc and survived against the catastrophic floods, there was a character ‘Matsya’ who guided them towards a safe place to repopulate the Earth.
8 – Monocerus (Medieval legends)
Monocerus (Unicorn)
Monocerus is derived from the Greek word Μονόκερος, which simply pertains to an animal with a single horn, similar to a unicorn. However, the medieval descriptions say that it had a head of a stag, the body of a horse, the legs of an elephant and a tail of a boar, topping which, was one horn to target the belly region of its opponents, the Elephants.
9 – Onocentaur (Greek Mythology)
Onocentaur
Half man and half horse have much been talked about, but the Onocentaur is a version of Centaur with Donkey credentials. Moreover, a Greek poetic mythology mentions another exotic centaur hybrid known as Ichthyocentaur, with upper torso of a man, the lower front of a horse and tail of a fish.
10 – Pazuzu (Babylonian Mythology)
Pazuzu
Pazuzu was the Dog head, eagle-like feet, a scorpion’s tail and a serpentine penis, with some ominous aspects. The demon of winds who could bring upon catastrophic famines during the rainy seasons. But Pazuzu was also invoked to fight against other evil spirits.
11 – Qilin (Chinese Mythology)
Qilin
Also known as the Chinese Unicorn, the Qilin goes hand in hand with whimsicality and mysticism, signifying the birth (or death) of a sage or eminent ruler. The features of this creature are depicted as having a body of a deer with a single horn, a tail of an ox and hooves of an horse, while their backs project a vivacious palette of colors, complemented by a yellowish belly.
12 –Tarasque (French folklore)
Tarasque
Golden Legend, the medieval bestseller, has the most renowned mentions of Tarasque. It describes Tarasque as a dragon or a dragon-like creature having a head of a lion, a body of an ox covered with a turtle shell, legs of a bear and a scaled tail like that of a scorpion.
We are on the cusp of discovering new technologies that “will take us even farther as we explore the planets and the stars” — and lead us closer to making contact with alien life, writes Michio Kaku in “The Future of Humanity.”
We know that one out of every five stars in the Milky Way galaxy has an Earth-like planet orbiting it — which means that there are more than 20 billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, according to Kaku. Though there are other conditions necessary to creating life (there must be a Jupiter-size neighbor to keep asteroids and debris out of the planet’s path and the Earth-like planet requires a moon to stabilize it), there seem to be plenty of options out there for life to exist.
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, thanks in part to funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, devotes 42 high-power telescopes to scanning a million stars to listen for alien communication.
Last year astronomers sent out a signal from the Norwegian city of Tromsø, containing electronic music and information on geometry and binary numbers, hoping it will reach ET ears.
Dr. Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute told Kaku that he believes we will make contact before 2025, though he upped that number by 10 years in a recent article for science magazine The Nautilus.
“I’ve bet a cup of coffee to any and all that by 2035 we’ll have evidence of ET,” Shostak wrote. “I’m optimistic by nature — as a scientist, you have to be . . . I feel that we’re on the cusp of learning something truly revolutionary.”
But what would ETs look like once we finally meet them?
To find out, Kaku interviewed experts in exobiology, a field that studies what life might be like in distant worlds with different ecosystems. Based on his research, Kaku decided that intelligent alien life would have three necessary features:
The aliens, like humans, would have stereo vision, which allows eyes to compare images and track distance — a necessary feature in predators, who hunt and track their prey. “In all likelihood, intelligent aliens in space will have descended from predators that hunted for their food,” Kaku writes. “This does not necessarily mean that they will be aggressive, but it does mean that their ancestors long ago might have been predators. We may be well served to be cautious.”
The aliens would have some form of opposable thumbs or grasping appendages, necessary for hunting prey and creating tools (which they would have to do to be sophisticated enough to make contact).
They would also need to have language. “In order to hand down and accumulate essential information from generation to generation, some form of language is crucial,” Kaku writes.
In addition, Kaku theorizes that many alien civilizations will exist on ice-covered moons (like Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus), where life would exist completely underwater. So how would an aquatic species become truly intelligent beings?
Kaku takes this thought experiment back to Earth. The one Earth-bound underwater animal that nearly fits all the above criteria — stereo vision, graspable appendages — is the octopus, he writes. The cephalopod, which has survived on Earth for at least 165 million years, only lacks language.
On a different planet, however, cephalopods could easily develop language — in fact, if conditions changed drastically on Earth, Kaku says it could even happen here, too.
“On a distant planet under different conditions, one can imagine that an octopus-like creature could develop a language of chirps and whistles so it could hunt in packs,” Kaku writes. “One could even imagine that at some point in the distant future, evolutionary pressures on Earth could force the octopus to develop intelligence. So an intelligent race of octopods is certainly a possibility.”
So that’s what we can expect? An intelligent race of octopods, like in the movie “Arrival”?
PACKS A PUNCH Engineers are testing a new spacecraft shield by slamming a bullet into it at 7 kilometers per second.
FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR HIGH-SPEED DYNAMICS
Engineers are taking a counterintuitive approach to protecting future spacecraft: shooting at their experiments. The image above and high-speed video below capture a 2.8-millimeter aluminum bullet plowing through a test material for a space shield at 7 kilometers per second. The work is an effort to find structures that could stand up to the impact of space debris.
Earth is surrounded by a cloud of debris, both natural — such as micrometeorites and comet dust, which create meteor showers — and unnatural, including dead satellites and the cast-off detritus of space launches. Those pieces of flotsam can damage other spacecraft if they collide at high speeds, and bits smaller than about a centimeter are hard to track and avoid, says ESA materials engineer Benoit Bonvoisin in a statement.
FLASH BANG Watch as a bullet slams through the first layer of a new, experimental space shield, and a second layer deflects the shrapnel.
To defend future spacecraft from taking a hit, Bonvoisin and colleagues are developing armor made from fiber metal laminates, or several thin metal layers bonded together. The laminates are arranged in multiple layers separated by 10 to 30 centimeters, a configuration called a Whipple shield.
In this experiment at the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics in Germany, the first layer shatters the aluminum bullet into a cloud of smaller pieces, which the second layer is able to deflect. This configuration has been used for decades, but the materials are new. The next step is to test the shield in orbit with a small CubeSat, Bonvoisin says.
TOTALLY LIT The first stars in the universe switched on by 180 million years after the Big Bang, radio observations indicate. Ultraviolet light from early, blueish stars (illustrated) interacted with hydrogen gas, causing it to absorb background radiation, and creating a signature scientists have now detected.
N.R. FULLER/NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
For the first time, scientists may have detected hints of the universe’s primordial sunrise, when the first twinkles of starlight appeared in the cosmos.
“It’s a tremendously exciting result. It’s the first time we’ve possibly had a glimpse of this era of cosmic history,” says observational cosmologist H. Cynthia Chiang of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, who was not involved in the research.
The oldest galaxies seen directly with telescopes sent their starlight from significantly later: several hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, which occurred about 13.8 billion years ago. The new observation used a technique, over a decade in the making, that relies on probing the hydrogen gas that filled the early universe. That approach holds promise for the future of cosmology: More advanced measurements may eventually reveal details of the early universe throughout its most difficult-to-observe eras.
But experts say the result needs additional confirmation, in particular because the signature doesn’t fully agree with theoretical predictions. The signal — a dip in the intensity of radio waves across certain frequencies — was more than twice as strong as expected.
The unexpectedly large observed signal suggests that the hydrogen gas was colder than predicted. If confirmed, this observation might hint at a new phenomenon taking place in the early universe. One possibility, suggested in a companion paper in Nature by theoretical astrophysicist Rennan Barkana of Tel Aviv University, is that the hydrogen was cooled due to new types of interactions between the hydrogen and particles of dark matter, a mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the universe.
If the interpretation is correct, “it’s quite possible that this is worth two Nobel Prizes,” says theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb of Harvard University, who was not involved with the work. One prize could be given for detecting the signature of the cosmic dawn, and another for the dark matter implications. But Loeb expresses reservations about the result: “What makes me a bit nervous is the fact that the [signal] that they see doesn't look like what we expected.”
To increase scientists’ confidence, the result must be verified by other experiments and additional tests, says theoretical cosmologist Matias Zaldarriaga of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Several other efforts to detect the signal are already under way.
Experimental cosmologist Judd Bowman of Arizona State University in Tempe and colleagues teased out their evidence for the first stars from the impact the light had on hydrogen gas. “We don’t see the starlight itself. We see indirectly the effect that the starlight would have had” on the cosmic environment, says Bowman, a collaborator on the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature, EDGES, which detected the stars’ traces.
TURN THE TABLES Detecting the signature of the first stars required a radio antenna about the size of a table (shown), located in western Australia, far from artificial sources of radio waves.
BRETT HISCOCK AND LOU PULS/CSIRO AUSTRALIA
Collapsing out of dense pockets of hydrogen gas early in the universe’s history, the first stars flickered on, emitting ultraviolet light that interacted with the surrounding hydrogen. The starlight altered the proportion of hydrogen atoms found in different energy levels. That change caused the gas to absorb light of a particular wavelength, about 21 centimeters, from the cosmic microwave background — the glow left over from around 380,000 years after the Big Bang (SN: 3/21/15, p. 7). A distinctive dip in the intensity of the light at that wavelength appeared as a result.
Over time, that light’s wavelength was stretched to several meters by the expansion of the universe, before being detected on Earth as radio waves. Observing the amount of stretching that had taken place in the light allowed the researchers to pinpoint how long after the Big Bang the light was absorbed, revealing when the first stars turned on.
Still, detecting the faint dip was a challenge: Other cosmic sources, such as the Milky Way, emit radio waves at much higher levels, which must be accounted for. And to avoid interference from sources on Earth — like FM radio stations — Bowman and colleagues set up their table-sized antenna far from civilization, at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the western Australian outback.
Scientists hope to use similar techniques with future, more advanced instruments to map out where in the sky stars first started forming, and to reveal other periods early in the universe’s history. “This is really the first step in what’s going to become a new and exciting field,” Bowman says.
Expand to full size to see this video from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, which caught a close-up view of the little Mars moon Phobos, moving in front of distant Saturn.
On March 1, 2018, the European Space Agency (ESA) released this video from its Mars Express spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since December 2003. The video combines 30 images as individual frames and shows Phobos passing through the frame with the gas giant planet Saturn, some 600 million miles (roughly a billion km) further away. Be sure to expand the video to full size to see Saturn as a small ringed dot in the background.
Putting Together a Community Strategy To Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Putting Together a Community Strategy To Search for Extraterrestrial Life
I regret that the formatting of this column was askew earlier; I hope it didn’t make reading too difficult. But now those problems are fixed.
The scientific search underway for life beyond Earth requires input from many disciplines and fields. Strategies forward have to hear and take in what scientists in those many fields have to say. (NASA)
Behind the front page space science discoveries that tell us about the intricacies and wonders of our world are generally years of technical and intellectual development, years of planning and refining, years of problem-defining and problem-solving. And before all this, there also years of brainstorming, analysis and strategizing about which science goals should have the highest priorities and which might be most attainable.
That latter process is underway now in regarding the search for life in the solar system and beyond, with numerous teams of scientists tackling specific areas of interest and concern and turning their group discussions into white papers. In this case, the white papers will then go on to the National Academy of Sciences for a blue-ribbon panel review and ultimately recommendations on which subjects are exciting and mature enough for inclusion in a decadal survey and possible funding.
This is a generally little-known part of the process that results in discoveries, but scientists certainly understand how they are essential. That’s why hundreds of scientists contribute their ideas and time — often unpaid — to help put together these foundational documents.
With its call for extraterrestrial habitability white papers, the NAS got more than 20 diverse and often deeply thought out offerings. The papers will be studied now by an ad hoc, blue ribbon committee of scientists selected by the NAS, which will have the first of two public meetings in Irvine, Calif. on Jan. 16-18.
Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a leader of many NASA study projects and a astrobiologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Fight Center. (NASA)
Then their recommendations go up further to the decadal survey teams that will set formal NASA priorities for the field of astronomy and astrophysics and planetary science. This community-based process that has worked well for many scientific disciplines since they began in the late 1950s.
I’m particularly familiar with two of these white paper processes — one produced at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) in Tokyo and the other with NASA’s Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS.) What they have to say is most interesting.
This is what Shawn Domagal-Goldman, an astrobiologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, had to say about their effort, which began 16 months ago with a workshop in Seattle:
Chaitanya Giri, a research scientist and the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo. (Nerissa Escanlar)
“This is an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ problem, and we held a workshop to start drawing a wide variety of scientists to the problem. Once we did, the group gave itself an ambitious goal – to quantify an assessment of whether or not an exoplanet has life, based on remote observations of that world.
“Doing that will take years of collaboration of scientists like the ones at the meeting, from diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences.”
Chaitanya Giri, a research scientist at ELSI with a background in organic planetary chemistry and organic cosmochemistry, said that his work on the European Rosetta mission to a comet convinced him that it is essential to “develop technological capacities to explore habitable niches on various planetary bodies and find unambiguous signatures of life, if present.” There is some debate about the organic molecules — the chemical building blocks of life — identified by Rosetta.
“Over the years there have been scattered attempts at building such instruments, but a coherent collaborative network was missing,” Giri said. “This necessity inspired me to put on this workshop,” which led to the white paper.
We’ll discuss the conclusions of the papers, but first at little about the decadal surveys:
NASA Decada:
Here are the instruction from the NAS to potential white paper teams working on life beyond Earth projects and issues:
Identify promising key research goals in the field of the search for signs of life in which progress is likely in the next 20 years.
Identify key technological challenges in astrobiology as they pertain to the search for life in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems.
Identify key scientific questions in astrobiology as they pertain to the search for life in the solar system and extrasolar planetary systems
Discuss scientific advances that can be addressed by U.S. and international space missions and relevant ground-based activities in operation or funded and in development
Discuss how to expand partnerships (interagency, international and public/private) in furthering the study of life’s origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe
Quite a wide net, from specific issues to much broader ones. But the teams submitting their papers are not expected to address all the issues, but only one or perhaps a related second.
The papers range from a SETI Institute call for a program to increase the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to address a range of astrobiology issues; to tempting possibilities offered by teams already in the running for future missions to Europa or Enceladus or elsewhere; to recommendations from the Planetary Science Institute about studying and searching for microbialites, living carbonate rock structures once common on Earth and possibly on Mars as well.
Proposed White Paper Subjects
Saturn’s moon Enceladus and plume of water vapor flowing out from its South Pole.
(NASA)
Microbialites are fresh water versions of the organic and carbonate structures called stromatolites — which are among the oldest signs of life detected on Earth.
The white paper from ELSI focuses how to improve and discover technology that can detect potential life on other planets and moons. It calls for an increasingly international approach to that costly and specialized effort.
The paper from Giri et al begins with a disquieting conclusion that only “lately, scattered efforts are being undertaken towards the R&D of the novel and as-yet space unproven ‘life-detection’ technologies capable of obtaining unambiguous evidence of extraterrestrial life, even if it is significantly different from {Earth} life. As the suite of space-proven payloads improves in breadth and sensitivity, this is an apt time to examine the progress and future of life-detection technologies.”
The paper points to one discovery in particular as indicative of what the team feels is necessary — an ability to search for life in regions theoretically devoid of life and therefore requiring novel detection techniques or probes.
“For example,” they write, “air sampling in Earth’s stratosphere with a novel scientific cryogenic payload has led to the isolation and identification of several new species of bacteria; this was an innovative technique analyzing a region of the atmosphere that was initially believed to be devoid of life.”
Other technologies they see as promising and needing further development are high-sensitivity fluorescence microscopy techniques that may be able to detect extraterrestrial organic compounds with catalytic activity surrounded by membranes, i.e., extraterrestrial cells. In addition, they support on-going and NASA-funded work on genetic samplers that could go to Mars and — if present — actually identify nucleic acid-based life.
“With back-to-back missions under development and proposed by various space agencies to the potentially habitable Mars, Enceladus, Titan, and Europa, this is a right time for a detailed envisioning of the technologies needed for detection of life,” Giri said in an e-mail.
Yellowknife Bay on Mars, where the rover Curiosity first found conditions that were habitable to life. The rover subsequently found many more habitable spots, but no existing or fossil microbial life so far. (NASA)
The NExSS white paper on potentially detectable biosignatures from distant exoplanets– one of four submitted by the group– is an especially ambitious one. The NASA-sponsored effort brought in many top scientists working in the field of biosignatures, and in the past year has already resulted in the publication or submission of five major science papers in addition to the white paper.
In keeping with the interdisciplinary mission of NExSS, the paper brought in people from many fields and ultimately advocates for a Bayesian approach to exoplanet life detection (named after 18th century statistician and philosopher Thomas Bayes. )
In most basic terms, the Bayes approach describes the probability of an event based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. A simple example: Runners A and B have competed four times, and runner A won three times. So the probability of A winner is high, right? But what if the two competed twice on a rainy track and each won one race. If the forecast for the day of the next race is rain, the probability of who will be the winner would change.
This approach not only embraces probability as an essential way forward, but it is especially useful in terms of weighing probabilities involving many measurements and fields. Because the factors involved in finding a biosignature are so complex and potentially confounding, they argue, the field has to think in terms of the probability that a number of biosignatures together suggest the presence of life, rather than a 100 percent certain detection (although that may some day be possible.)
Nancy Kiang of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, explores (among other subjects) the possibility of using photosynthetic pigments as biosignatures on exoplanets.
Nancy Kiang of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, explores (among other subjects) the possibility of using photosynthetic pigments as biosignatures on exoplanets.
Both Domagal-Goldman and collaborator Nancy Kiang of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies are eager to adopt climate modeling and it’s ability to use known characteristics of divergent sub-fields to put together a big picture. (Those two, along with Niki Parenteau of NASA Ames Research Center led the NExSS effort.)
“For instance,” Kiang said, “the general circulation model (GCM) at GISS simulates the global circulation patterns of a planet’s wind, heat, moisture, and gases, providing statistical behaviors of the simulated climate.” She sees a similar possibility with exoplanets and biosignatures.
Such a computer model can take in data from different fields and come up with some probabilities. The model “might tell us that a planet is habitable over a certain percent of its surface,” she said.
“A geochemist or planetary formation person might then tell us that if certain chemistry exists on that planet, it has good potential for prebiotic compounds to form. A biologist and geologist might tell us that certain surface signatures on the planet are plausible for either life or mineral background.” That’s not a robust biosignature, but the probability that it could be life is not zero, depending on origin of the signature.
“These different forms of information can be integrated into a Bayesian analysis to tell us the likelihood of life on the planet,” she wrote.
One arm of the NExSS team is already using the tools of climate modeling to predict how particular conditions on exoplanets would play out under different circumstances.
This is a plot of what the sea ice distribution could look like on a synchronously rotating ocean world. The star is off to the right, blue is where there is open ocean, and white is where there is sea ice. (NASA/GISS/Anthony Del Genio)
I will return to the NExSS biosignatures white paper later, since it is so rich with cutting edge thinking about this upcoming stage in space science. But I do want to include one specific recommendation made by the group, which calls itself the Exoplanet Biosignatures Workshop Without Walls (EBWWW).
What they say is necessary now is for more biologists to join the search for extraterrestrial life.
“The EBWWW revealed that the search for exoplanet life is still largely driven by astronomers and planetary scientists, and that this field requires more input from origins of life researchers and biologists to advance a process-based understanding for planetary biosignatures.
“This includes assessing the {already assessed probability} that a planet may have life, or a life process evolved for a given planet’s environment. These advances will require fundamental research into the origins and processes of life, in particular for environments that vary from modern Earth’s. Thus, collaboration between origins of life researchers, biologists, and planetary scientists is critical to defining research questions around environmental context.”
The recommendation, it seems to me, illustrates both the youth and a maturing of the field.
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ENCIRCLED BY AN UFO? THE WEIRD ENCOUNTER OF CAPTAIN JÚLIO MIGUEL GUERRA
ENCIRCLED BY AN UFO? THE WEIRD ENCOUNTER OF CAPTAIN JÚLIO MIGUEL GUERRA
Following my own demarcations about the nature of a strange flying object having been sighted, I see a UFO as any object in the air which cannot be accounted for with our current knowledge. It stands to reason this isn’t necessarily the same thing as an alien spacecraft.
A UFO encircles a helpless aircraft. Artistic creation.
Given this definition, the general claim that UFOs really exist isn’t extraordinary by any means and seems almost certain to anyone having taken a look at the most puzzling sightings with an open eye.
Yet one can still find hardcore skeptics such as German debunker Werner Walter confidently asserting that there are “no unsolved cases“.
As we saw with the disappearance of Australian pilot Frederick Valentich, having “solved“ an intriguing case generally means picking and choosing some facts fitting the pet-theory of the “Skeptics“, while ignoring all other elements or explaining them away by resorting to incredibly unlikely ad-hoc hypotheses.
But there are some incidents which are ignored altogether by debunkers who do not write a sole page to “account“ for them in a conventional way.
In what follows, I reproduced such a case for which I’ve been (until now) utterly unable to find any debunking explanation.
Portugal, 1982
In the chapter he wrote for “UFOs,” Airline Captain Júlio Miguel Guerra relives his lengthy encounter with a highly active UFO while serving as a flight instructor for the Portuguese Air Force in 1982.
He writes: “At various times the object had been very close to me and I was able to verify that it was round with two halves shaped like two tight-fitting skullcaps. I carefully looked at the lower one, which seemed to be somewhere between red and brown with a hole or dark spot in the center.
“The center band looked like it had some kind of a grid, and possibly a few lights, but it was hard to tell since the sun was so bright and was reflected.”
The object circled his small airplane for 15 minutes while he was alone in the sky, in his DHC-1 Chipmunk. He made this drawing the day after the encounter and submitted it with his report to the Portuguese Air Force.
(Júlio Guerra, CNIFO Case Report)
Guerra states that the object “flew at a fantastic speed in a large elliptical orbit to the left, between 5,000 feet to the South and approximately 10,000 feet to the North, always from left to right, repeating this route over and over. “I tried to keep it in sight.”
Two fellow Air Force officers, Carlos Garcês and António Gomes, flew to the location, and they too watched the object repeat its elliptical course, passing between the two planes on each return, for about 10 minutes. They were able to estimate the size, given its proximity to the two aircraft: about eight to 10 feet.
After landing, all three pilots filed detailed, independent written reports with the Air Force. General José Lemos Ferreira, the Portuguese Air Force Chief of Staff at the time, authorized the release of all the records to a team of scientists and experts, which conducted a lengthy scientific investigation.
The group estimated that the unidentified object was flying at over 300 MPH vertically and its velocity when it circled Guerra’s aircraft was about 1550 MPH.
Since leaving the Air Force in 1990 after 18 years of service, Júlio Guerra has been a Captain with Portugália Airlines (TAP), Portugal’s largest commercial airline. He has 17,000 hours of flight experience, and in 2009 he received an aeronautic science degree from the Lusofona University of Oporto. (Courtesy Júlio Guerra)
It is worth noting that as he first noticed the object, the captain was flying at 5000 feet and perceived it as a metallic disk flying not far from the ground. He turned around to better observe it and the thing flew up to him in only 10 seconds. The sky was clear and the visibility was excellent.
Trying to put myself in the shoes of a debunker is really hard in that specific situation. I’ll nevertheless try to put on my pseudo-skeptical hat and look for conventional explanations compatible with known phenomena or aircrafts.
Weather balloon
Weather balloon
This is the first thing which sprang to the mind of the flight officers and other pilots he contacted by radio while having this strange experience.
Their initial reaction was that it must be a kind of weather balloon and some of his colleagues even laughed at him.
The problem is that Guerra could clearly recognize that the object was initially flying close to the ground while the visibility was incredibly good under this cloudless sky. Whilst distance appreciations are never perfect, it is extremely far-fetched to think that this experienced pilot would perceive an object flying just below him as being near to the soil, that is at least 4000 feet lower than it actually was.
Given that, the fact that the thing covered vertically in only 10 seconds such a distance rules out that it was some kind of non-motorized balloon.
What is more, in order to circle Julio’s plane (a fact attested by the two other pilots having attended to the event), it needed to have glided considerably more quickly than him.
Its peculiar orbiting movements would also involve an extraordinarily improbable wind distribution at the time and place of the incident.
Consequently, I think we can completely forget this possibility.
Conventional aircraft
The next theory would be that Guerra had been confronted with a conventional helicopter or plane he and the two other pilots misidentified.
Unknown form
The first objection is that this doesn’t fit at all the shape of the object which had neither body nor rear.
Its oval form made up of two halves doesn’t correspond to any known aircraft.
Incredible velocity
The scientific committee having meticulously studied this case estimated the speed of the object during his vertical ascension to 300 miles per hour and even to 1550 miles per hour as it was circling around Julio Guerra, based on the data of the three men who had already produced three independent reports after the sighting. While such numbers might be imprecise, it can be deduced that it was truly flying much faster than their planes, which is at the very least incompatible with it being a helicopter or any usual type of planes back in 1982.
Weird behavior
The whole behavior of the object is also completely at odds with it being a private or military aircraft being piloted by someone else. What motive could have had any other pilot to rapidly fly towards another aircraft and start out circling him in such a bizarre fashion?
Taking together, these three factors make it extremely implausible that the three men had just encountered a conventional piloted aircraft.
Full fleshed hallucination
(c) Alan Davie; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Delirious hallucination.
I think that the only way a debunker could cope with this sighting would be by declaring it was entirely hallucinatory.
The sober and experienced pilot Julio Guerra began to see an object which didn’t exist and during the next 15 minutes, he hallucinated it doing coherent movements around him even though there was nothing at all out there.
Since the two other pilots were expecting to see something, they experienced a similar hallucination consistent with what their colleague had shortly described to them.
Needless to say that the probability of three mentally sane individuals having such a shared coherent hallucination during a elongated timespan is astronomically low.
Imagine they had just reported having sighted another plane flying illegally. After having made their report to the local military police, one of the responsible just shrugged and said: “Well, I’m pretty sure they saw no plane at all but just dreamed up the whole thing.“ what would be your own reaction?
Would not such a statement sound incredibly ridiculous and even outrageously absurd?
Yet, for die-hard skeptics convinced that there must be an ordinary explanation for anything seen in the sky, this is pretty much the only game in town.
Conclusion: an unknown flying object
I myself wholeheartedly echo Guerra’s own conclusion: “I have no clue about whether or not it stemmed from another universe, another planet or was of earthly origin. I just don’t know.“
It doesn’t seem to me unlikely that what he saw was a sophisticated purely human creation (such as a sort of very advanced drone or robot). But this would then mean that there is a huge gap between human technology as it is publicly known and the very best vehicles and weapons our governments really dispose of.
Anyway, such kinds of incidents show us that when “Skeptics“ affirm that there isn’t any sighting they can’t conventionally account for, all what they mean is that one can explain everything away through piling up widely implausible assumptions made in hindsight.
Op het nog steeds bevroren continent van Antarctica komen steeds meer dingen boven water, zoals nu een object dat lijkt te zijn neergestort.
Het heeft waarschijnlijk een berg geraakt en komt na een spoor door de sneeuw van meer dan een kilometer uiteindelijk tot stilstand.
Bovenstaande lijkt een logische verklaring wanneer je kijkt naar de satellietbeelden waarop te zien is hoe een onbekend object een lang spoor door de sneeuw maakt en dan abrupt stopt.
De plek waar dit gebeurt is, is een eiland wat zich bevindt tussen het uiterste puntje van Antarctica en het Zuid Amerikaanse Chili. Het eiland is met een rode cirkel aangegeven.
Wanneer we verder inzoomen, ziet het er zo uit.
En daar, ergens op dat eiland, is een langwerpig, sigaarvormig object te zien in de sneeuw dat na een lang spoor te hebben gemaakt abrupt tot stilstand komt. Om het zelf op te zoeken, gebruik je de volgende coördinaten:
Wanneer je de beelden goed bekijkt, begint het spoor aan de rand van een berg, waardoor het lijkt alsof dit object eerst de rand van die berg heeft geraakt waarna het uiteindelijk een kilometer verderop in de sneeuw tot stilstand kwam.
Wanneer je de plek bekijkt bij de berg waar het spoor begint, dan lijkt het alsof dat de plek is waar dit object de berg heeft geraakt, verschillende onderdelen alle kanten zijn opgevlogen en het hoofddeel van het sigaarvormig object de sneeuw in wordt gelanceerd waar het na ongeveer een kilometer tot stilstand komt.
Hier is een opname gemaakt vanaf de andere kant van het object en hier zie je duidelijk de grote schaduwen. Deze is op het hoogste punt 12 meter, waardoor je dus over een behoorlijk object spreekt.
Wanneer je het spoor van dichtbij bekijkt, dan zie je goed dat hier geen sprake is van iets dat natuurlijk is gevormd, maar een duidelijk spoor dat door een solide object is gemaakt.
Er zijn misschien nog andere verklaringen mogelijk, maar duidelijk is dat daar iets in de sneeuw ligt wat niet door de natuur is gevormd.
Lying within the Tualatin Valley of Oregon, in the United States, just 25 miles from the major city of Portland, is the rustic suburb of Forest Grove. Originally sprouted from a farming community, the quiet town has a population of just over 20,000, and is usually a peaceful place outside of major news and the noise of the city. However, in 2016 the usual quiet was rudely broken when terrified residents of the rural town began to report hearing an unearthly loud shrieking noise piercing out from the surrounding countryside at night that no one could explain, and which would go on to generate national news and baffle experts.
To those who heard it, the sound was described variously as being a shrill squeal, a flute-like blare, the screeching of car brakes, a steam whistle, a mechanical scream, metal scraping against metal, an off-kilter siren, or a banshee like moan, but it was agreed by all that no matter what exactly it sounded like it was a truly intense and nerve-wracking racket which purportedly kept people awake and was said to drive pets nuts. The weird noise was also described as coming from the trees, from backyards, and even from the middle of the street, and no one could quite figure out where or what it was emanating from. The story was propelled even further into the mainstream consciousness when a video made by resident Paula Lynch was released purporting to contain one of the mystery shrieks, and the Internet went nuts trying to figure out what it was. One Dave Nemeyer, fire marshal of Forest Grove Fire and Rescue, investigated and said of it:
It’s definitely a horrendous noise. I have no idea what the noise is. [The resident] described to us that it was coming from the middle of the street. To me, it sounds like the sound of train tracks, that metal screeching sound, but there are no train tracks near her home … so that’s obviously ruled out.
Forest Grove, Oregon
Several other people began to come forward with their own recordings of the anomalous noise, which supposedly typically lasted from 10 seconds all the way up to several minutes, and the whole mystery deepened further. It was widely thought that the sound perhaps came from some broken pipeline or leak, but when this was checked out it was found that the sound did not really match this audio signature. For their part, Forest Grove Public Works and the gas company Northwest Natural denied that the sound could be coming from them or a ruptured gas line, and that even if it had it would have absolutely released a strong odor of gas, and the fire department also put to rest the idea that it was coming from a fire alarm somewhere. The Department of Forestry also said that whatever it was did not originate from them. Additionally, the nearby train tracks are rarely used, and authorities explained that this could not be the origin of the sound either. Some suggested that pranksters could have been behind it, but there was no evidence of this. Forest Grove Police Capt. Mike Herbs said of the noise:
There would be a city ordinance violation if somebody was creating a noise like this, that late at night, on purpose to annoy people. At this point, we don’t have information that would lead us to believe that’s the case. It sounds to me like some kind of release valve or some kind of pipe that’s under pressure. We’ve had different suggestions from folks that it’s an alien mother ship or a warning sign of something to come.
Yes, of course aliens come into the picture. The wilder theories included that the sound was made by UFOs or that it was the wailing of some strange creature or entity like a ghost or Sasquatch, or even the portentous trumpeting of angels from Heaven. Indeed, whole forums were dedicated to the unexplained noise, where there were theories ranging that it was produced from vast underground bases and government mind control experiments, to the inscrutable activities of government installations or more paranormal explanations like ghosts and UFOs. Whatever it was, the mystery shriek of Forest Grove was all over the news on websites, in newspapers, on news shows, and on TV programs such as Inside Edition and World News Tonight.
Then, almost as suddenly as it appeared the noise stopped and the town was quite again. In the void of silence left by the lack of the mysterious squeal, the speculation has continued and theories remained rampant, with people of all opinions sticking fast to their own ideas on what it could have been. The most rational explanation is still that tis was some sort of problem with a pipe or a valve, and a physics professor at Forest Grove’s Pacific University, an Andy Dawes, has thrown in his two cents by saying:
An audio analyst from Florida emailed me a fairly detailed report that certainly agreed well with the hypothesis that it came from a faulty valve within an HVAC (or heat pump) unit. If the original source was a failing valve, then it may have gone away completely when the failure was complete.
Is that all this was, some leaky pipe? Or was there something more to this? Was it perhaps something beyond our ability to rationally explain? Whatever it was, the mystery shriek of Forest Grove has never been solved, and continues to baffle all who hear it. Considering that it has not been heard since, there is the very real possibility that we may never know what caused it, but for now it seems as if the residents of the area can rest easy. At least for now.
Sky-Watcher caught Being-Plasma Ball traveling through Space
Sky-Watcher caught Being-Plasma Ball traveling through Space
A sky-watcher David S captured a strange phenomenon through his telescope on the evening of March 2, 2018 around 9.30 pm using a Canon powershot camera with a Celestron 130 telescope with an 18 mm eyepiece and a 2x barlow lens.
The short footage shows a strange object that looks like a kind of transparent plasma ball with a being or alien residing inside the ball.
Image left: Original Enlarged - Image right: Original Enlarged Over Exposed
Despite this kind of phenomenon is not yet understood, it is not the first time images have been captured of orbs or plasma balls that show beings residing inside the objects.
Former Pentagon X Files Project Head Reveals US Intelligence Officers Leak UFO Footage Themselves To Get More Pieces of the Puzzle
Former Pentagon X Files Project Head Reveals US Intelligence Officers Leak UFO Footage Themselves To Get More Pieces of the Puzzle
Defence officials need help from the public after all to find answers on top secret UFO videos. Former head of real life X-Files programme of the Pentagon revealed that defence officials leak UFO footage themselves to the public in a bid to find answers.
Luis Elizondo, the former top secret programme head, revealed that the releasing of two strange videos of UFO encounters late in 2017 was intended to ask help from the public in solving these mysteries by putting together more pieces of the puzzle.
The Pentagon confirmed back in December the existence of the $22 million programmed which investigated UFO sightings from 2007 to 2012.
In a recent video clip, Elizondo claims that the defence officials declassified and released the footages themselves so that members of the public could try identifying the mysterious objects in those videos.
The Pentagon claimed that the funding for the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and its operation ceases in 2012 but Elizondo said that the program itself had not ended. The bombshell revelations provide the clearest insight so far on the secret UFO project of the Pentagon.
Elizondo has promised to reveal some more information as long as it has been approved for release. Ufologist Alejandro Rojas said that the insider’s view of Elizondo is invaluable.
Humans Are Being Alien Abducted. Why Is It Happening?
Humans Are Being Alien Abducted. Why Is It Happening?
People forget that Cthulhu is not actually evil, he’s amoral. He just doesn’t care about you one way or the other. These aliens could be the same way. So all the fear you endure, the tears, the pain from their experiments, all the things you feel from their research; it means nothing. They’re just insignificant reactions to them. Not because they’re sociopaths, but because they just don’t give a shit about humanity either way. They just want to come here, do the research they were going to do, and get the hell off this crazy monkey planet.
Let’s say that there are aliens and they live in the closest star system to us, Proxima Centauri. Proxima Centauri is about 4.2 light years away. It will take us tens of thousands of years to travel that distance with our current technology. If they can cross that distance, that would mean that they are really smart cookies.
The aliens would have to cross the void of space very quickly for it to be practical to do research about another sentient species in another star system. If it took them thousands of years to cross the gap, they would likely be looking to colonize. If it took hundreds of generations to travel somewhere, it would be pointless to even send a scouting mission, as it would take hundreds of generations to get any data. When space travel is that slow, traveling vast distances would have to be an all or nothing effort. So if they were sending only a few researchers over (as a ship that can support generations of life forms would be easily detected), that would mean that they were crossing the void at least fast enough for time dilation to take effect so a few researchers can survive the journey. This means that they are really really smart cookies.
Now technology that uses energy will give off some form of radiation as a waste product. This is because the laws of the universe prevent things from being 100% percent efficient. (This is why phones, tablets, and computers heat up during use). If they had the technology to travel that quickly and then slow down in our solar system (as an object in motion stays in motion and if one had enough energy to go 50% the speed of light, for example, they would need just as much energy to slow back down), it would give off radiation that would be detectable to us. Even if their technology is 99.9% efficient, it would give off some radiation that we could detect.
And don’t forget that 0.1% of the energy needed to slow down from 50% light speed is still a lot of energy. Along with that, they would need to communicate back to their homeworld any data they gather. This would also be something we could pick up on. If they established a base of operations in the solar system, then the energy used to power the technology keeping them alive and processing data would also give off some radiation signature.
We have probes all over the place. The various rovers and satellites would have picked up something if they were on Mars. The sphere of satellites around Earth and the moon would pick up something if they were there. Juno would likely pick up on something if they were on one of Jupiter’s moons. Cassini would found them if they were on one of Saturn’s moons. Flybys of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto likely would have found them out if they were there. And if they were on Mercury or Venus, Earth would have been between them and Proxima Centauri multiple times, so we would have stumbled upon their communications with sensors here on Earth. For us to not detect them means that they have found a way to hide their radiation from us. This means that they are really really really smart cookies.
Given that they are hiding their existence from us, and they aren’t trying to make their presence known far and wide without a shadow of a doubt to Earth’s people (or at least the scientific community), they aren’t trying to make first contact.
One could argue that they are making contact with the government and the government is hiding this from us, but this logic is flawed. First, meeting aliens is a big fucking deal. The US government could barely keep the contents of the patriot act secret for as long as it did. That was leaked in about a decade. A big deal like this would likely be leaked much faster by a whistleblower, assuming a hacker doesn’t beat them to it. Second, scientists want information to be seen by many so they can use their knowledge to advance mankind. There would be no reason for a scientist to hide this information from everyone, so this makes the odds of a whistleblower revealing this more likely. Lastly, the US government is likely not the only government that they would make contact with, and one of these governments is likely to be less deceptive to its populace than the US is. Let’s say that they also contacted Denmark, and Denmark is transparent to its citizens about first contact. The news will spread over Twitter in literal seconds, making any US efforts to hide first contact pointless.
So they aren’t here to be known. They also aren’t here to take resources. Given that they can cross multiple light year gaps in space and can hide any waste radiation that they produce, the aliens are very advanced. The difference in technology between them and us would be greater than that between us and an ant hill. Remember when I said they were “really really really smart cookies”. That was a massive understatement. They could get any resource they want in abundance from the solar system without getting close to the Earth. Metals and minerals are common in the asteroid belt. Gases can be taken from the gas giants. Heck, if they needed a specific molecule, they could just siphon hydrogen from Jupiter, use nuclear fusion to convert it into the atoms they need, and arrange the atoms into the molecules they need. They have no reason to visit earth and would likely leave us alone. If there was a convoluted scenario they did need a non-living thing from Earth, they could just bulldoze the planet. Again, we are an anthill to them.
So that leaves research. They’ve taken great efforts to hide their presence from us, so they want to keep the research a secret. Why would they take humans at night, then return them to tell their friends that the aliens are there? To reiterate, we are ants to them. If they were doing any level of research on us they would know, based off of news stories, that it isn’t uncommon for someone to go missing and never be found again, or found several years later as a corpse in a river or something. If they killed their test subjects, they will remain hidden.
But if they do take people at night and return them, why would they do so?
It wouldn’t be a moral reason. Again, they would see our media and know that contact with an advanced alien species would topple religion, cause several revolutions, and a war or two may be started. At the very least, mass rioting would ensue. More humans would die if their presence was known. Why let one person live when it dooms a hundred to die?
So maybe they want their presence to be known, a little. They keep the major giveaways of their presence hidden, so most people think that their existence is improbable at best. Yet they let one or two people see them and make everyone else think that the people who saw them are crazy. They may also mess with some NASA footage now and again to make their presence kinda known, but not common knowledge. Then they sit back and watch the show.
I bet that this would turn into some entertainment to them. They watch as the hairless monkey creatures squabble amongst themselves about the existence of magical creatures from the sky. They would now be laughing their asses off as they watch Ancient Aliens. It is utterly hilarious that some people will credit their entire civilization to beings that the scientific community doesn’t even have strong evidence to prove their existence. If they were messing with us, there is no way they could have expected Ancient Aliens to be made.
If there were aliens that shaped the course of human civilization, they likely already have enough notes on us to make abductions pointless today. If a different race of aliens came to us, they would likely also know of the aliens that already shaped our civilisation and opt to trade notes instead of doing their own research (That, and the existence of one race of aliens is already unlikely, so the odds that there are two races close enough to us to do research on us, and the odds that, if they both existed, both managed to remain as hidden from us as well enough that their existence is considered a conspiracy theory to most people today, are astronomical).
But, if you are a follower of William of Ockham (Occam’s Razor) it leaves us with the following scenario.
Aliens are not taking us, it’s a sleep disorder thing. Before aliens were invented, people would say they were taken by demons. This has been going on for many centuries. Humans have several flaws in the way our brains behave under certain stresses. If you experience sleep paralysis, your body will not move and you’re brain will be half asleep. This allows dream-like images to become part of the real world. Your brain will make up stories about why you can’t move and you can easily hallucinate animals, aliens, or a succubus. Imagine half waking up and not being able to do anything. Imagine the fear of struggling to move, but thinking you’re being held down. It’s natural that your brain would go through all of the possibilities and arrive at something you fear. With most people that fear is something getting in your house, violating your body, and doing it all while you’re utterly defenseless.
Your hypnogogic state will seem just as real to you as when you are awake. That is because the same parts of the brain that create your daytime reality are the ones that are utilized in your hallucinatory state.
Of course, that does not answer to the claims of multiple people being abducted at the same time or wide awake abductions that happen nowhere around bedtime. It all comes down ultimately to the evidence. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence in peoples accounts of being taken but absolutely nothing else of substance.
With the recent release of the Pentagon’s UFO footage, which comprised of two videos filmed by U.S. Navy pilots of objects performing maneuvers that defy our current understanding of aerodynamics, the topic of UFOs has once again grabbed headlines around the world.
The video was a step forward towards disclosing the fact that there are unknown objects in our atmosphere that are commonly spotted and tracked on radar by defence authorities. They are highly technologically advanced, more so than any air-craft which is available in any global inventory at the moment.
Further to this, many people have had strange sightings that don’t really ‘make sense,’ in the realm of known aircrafts. The frequency of these sightings are not uncommon these days, especially for avid star gazers.
Haven’t seen one yourself? Well, how often are you looking up into the night sky? For many people, the answer is little to never.
Who Man’s These Craft’s?
The next question to be asked is, are these objects, or at least some of them, extraterrestrial?
According to one of the pilots who filmed the UFO released by the Pentagon, yes, they are, at least that’s their belief. The Pentagon’s “aerial defence” program director, Luis Elizondo also shared his belief that they are, along with hundreds of other high ranking personnel from several branches of military, intelligence, academia, aerospace and academia. He said that there is plenty of evidence to make that connection… The most recent example might be Robert Bigelow, founder of the Bigelow Aerospace corporation who, not long ago, stated that he knows we are being visited, and have been visited by ET’s.
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. . . . We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time. . . . I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.”
Ancient history is fascinating to say the least, and we’ve discovered so much about it. But, at the same time, we still know very little about Earth’s history and even the history of humanity. One of the most fascinating points to make about ancient history is that much of which was once considered mythological, is actually turning out to be true.
Perhaps information that didn’t fit within our framework of accepted knowledge was deemed mythological? How can we take seriously the writings of ancient Greek philosophers when describing social life and other aspects of humanity, yet when it comes to other areas of theworld, like the Oracle at Delphi, they are placed in a the mythological realm?
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Perhaps some was mythological, but perhaps some of what we call mythological was actually real.
Another great example is the Lost Land of Atlantis, a highly technologically advanced civilization that would shake what we thought we knew of human history, it’s not so much a tale anymore, and it’s one of many examples that show what we’ve been taught may not be completely correct.
For anybody who has done their research in this area, it’s quite clear given the evidence we now have, that Atlantis was far from a mythological place. Given our research on Atlantis, and many scholars out there, Atlantis is no joke, and perhaps before that, Lemuria as well.
This is why when it comes to stories of figures like Quetzalcoatl, it’s always interesting to contemplate that they were real.
The video footage mentioned above, which was released by the Pentagon, was done so in conjunction with To The Stars Academy headed by Tom Delonge, along with Luis Elizondo (mentioned earlier), and several other figures who’ve held high level positions within the Department of Defence. The Pentagon is working with the academy in the disclosure of UFO’s.
That in itself is a completely different discussion with many implications. It’s hard to trust the government these days, so can we really trust them with UFO disclosure and what that means? Will leave this for another time.
Delonge recently made some interesting comments about his experiences so far, and the contacts he’s been able to make, and the discussions that have been had.
“I went and met a former director of the CIA and NSA…Right when I sat down and told him about the book you know what he says to me? He goes, “I didn’t read much science fiction when I was a kid but I read a lot about Greek mythology”…The sixth biggest defense contractor in the world is a company called Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)…and in the front of the building (SAIC’s headquarters) you have an obelisk coming out of a fake leg and two Atlantians on thrones, and they’re both holding pyramids and one says the past and one says the future, and they’re 8 foot tall statues.”
So, who was Quetzalcoatl? Considered to be a mythical tale, Spanish chronicler Juan de Torquemada states that Quetzalcoatl was ‘a fair and ruddy complexioned man with a long beard. Another describes him as follows:
“A mysterious person…a white man with strong formation of body, broad forehead, large eyes, and a flowing beard. He was dressed in a long, white robe reaching to his feet. He condemned sacrifices, except of fruits and flowers, and was known as the god of peace…When addressed on the subject of war he is reported to have stopped up his ears with his fingers.” (source)
Graham Hancock, one of the world’s foremost researchers into such things, describes another description from Central American Mayan tradition in his book, Fingerprints of the Gods:
“He came from across the sea in a boat that moved by itself without paddles. He was a tall, bearded white man who taught people to use fire for cooking. He also built houses and showed couples that they could live together as husband and wife; and since people often quarrelled in those days, he taught them to live in peace.”
This figure is spoken of the Mesoamerican culture.
It’s interesting because there are multiple accounts of various figures, not just Quetzalcoatl, all of which seemed to have provided humanity with a little ‘push’, here and there, and assistance with regards to discovery. Nothing was really done for humanity, it seemed that the common theme through all of these contacts was for us to better ourselves, and be responsible for our own progression, with a little bit of assistance.
Not all of the ‘gods’ were kind, loving and peaceful. There were others who required sacrifices, and seemed to almost be a little opposite of ones like Quetzalcoatl.
What’s also interesting is that the descriptions of Quetzalcoatl resemble modern day descriptions of some, supposed extraterrestrial beings. Those who have examined the lore, like myself, would know this. Could these have been who we consider today, benevolent extraterrestrial beings? Perhaps.
Ancient history, along with many ancient cultures who pre-date modern-day religion, all have very interesting stories which can easily be interpreted has highly advanced beings from another place.
The idea that these are just mere interpretations seem to be dwindling every year. Being an avid researcher in the field for more than a decade, I can tell you that extraterrestrial intelligence is just the tip of the iceberg. It truly does open up Pandora’s box, and there is much more to this universal story, so much so that we probably couldn’t even comprehend it.
The evidence today points to the idea that we’ve been visited for a long time, so to contemplate the idea that these were extraterrestrial visits is not out of the question.
“There are objects in our atmosphere which are technically miles in advance of anything we can deploy, that we have no means of stopping them coming here … [and] that there is a serious possibility that we are being visited and have been visited for many years by people from outer space, from other civilizations….Who they are, where they come from, and what they want. This should be the subject of rigorous scientific investigation and not the subject of ‘rubishing’ by tabloid newspapers.”
–Lord Admiral Hill-Norton, former Chief of Defence Staff, 5 Star Admiral of the Royal Navy, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (source)
If they have been here as well as visiting us for a long time, that’s good news. It takes out the idea of an ‘extraterrestrial invasion’, because, if that were the case, it would have already happened by now.
To find all of our archived articles on the UFO/Extraterrestrial phenomenon, you can visit theexopolitics section of our website.
The meaning of Quetzalcoatl is “feathered serpent,” this is the translation that comes from ancient South America, from the Maya and the Aztecs. In Hancock’s book, he goes on to describe how there were other entities who resembled Quetzalcoatl quite closely:
“There were other deities, among the Maya in particular, whose identities seemed to merge closely with those of Quetzalcoatl. One was Votan, a great civilizer, who was also described as pale-skinned, bearded and wearing a long robe. Sholars could offer no translation for his name but his principal symbol, like that of Quetzalcoatl, was a serpent. Another closely related figure was Itzamana, the Mayan god of healing, who was robed and bearded individual, his symbol, too, was the rattlesnake.”
Graham, in his book, goes on to state:
“All of the legends stated unambiguously that Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan/Gucumatz/Votan/Itzamana had arrived in Central America from some-where very far away (across the “Eastern Sea”) and that amid great sadness he had eventually sailed off again in the direction whence he had come.”
This is an interested quote, and relates closely to a sentiment shared by a First Nations Canadian storyteller, Richard Wagamese:
“My people tell of Star People who came to us many generations ago. The Star people brought spiritual teachings and stories and maps of the cosmos and they offered these freely. They were kind, loving and set a great example. When they left us, my people say there was a loneliness like no other.” (source)
Interesting to think about. These are versions of history that old more plausibility to them than the ones we currently consider concrete. As we continue to move forward exponentially, perhaps our destiny is in the stars and we ourselves one day will be the extraterrestrials, or perhaps we already are.
There May Be Alien Life In Our Solar System, Say Experts
There May Be Alien Life In Our Solar System, Say Experts
According to scientists, certain microbes can develop and produce methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen under extrapolated conditions on Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon, according to a study published in Nature.
What does this mean? Well, it means that there’s a very high chance that we may not be the only life forms in our solar system, and that aliens are…real.
Satun’s satellite has been found to have a warm underground ocean and strange hydrothermal vents which may help support life, according to experts. Now, new research has offered groundbreaking evidence that certain microbes could survive in the moon’s ocean.
Enceladus’s plumes.
Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Now, scientists which refer to Enceladus as a hot spot in the search for alien life have discovered how certain methane-producing microbes on Earth, have the ability to survive extremely harsh conditions which may exist on Enceladus.
Furthermore, scientists explain how methane found around Enceladus’ surface may have been produced by microbial life, located just beneath its icy crust.
According to the cited scientific publication, prokaryotic microorganisms known as methanogenic archaea could develop under certain conditions assumed on Enceladus, using carbon dioxide and molecular hydrogen for growth, releasing methane.
Enceladus as seen from afar across Saturn’s rings.
Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
“I’m pleased people are starting to take deep looks at biological methane production,” says Christopher Glein, a geochemist and planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute speaking to WIRED. “The next step is doing this hard work in the lab to figure out what life might look like from a spacecraft instrument’s point of view.”
To reach this conclusion, a team of researchers from the University of Vienna cultivated three of these microorganisms in the laboratory, under gas compositions and pressures similar to those attributed to Enceladus. One of the microbes, called Methanothermococcus Okinawensis, grew and produced methane, even in the presence of components that inhibited the growth of other methanogenic archanes, such as ammonia, carbon monoxide or formaldehyde.
This graphic shows how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of the ocean of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, producing hydrogen gas.
In addition, scientists found that serpentinization – a process in which rocks are geochemically altered – that possibly occurred in the Enceladus nucleus, could generate enough hydrogen to support these prokaryotic microorganisms.
The recently obtained results support the idea that methanogenic archaea could, in theory, develop and produce methane in Enceladus. However, experts warn that methane can also be generated by geochemical, not biological, processes.
To find out whether or not Enceladus may in fact be an alien homeworld, “Future missions to Enceladus or other icy moons should be equipped to be able to detect methanogenic biosignatures related to methanogens, like certain lipids or ratios of certain carbon isotopes,” said study co-author Simon Rittmann, of the Department of Ecogenomics and Systems Biology at the University of Vienna in Austria, in an interview with space.com.
Record Breaker! Powerful Supernova Is Most Distant Ever Seen
Record Breaker! Powerful Supernova Is Most Distant Ever Seen
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer
This animation shows the appearance of the superluminous supernova DES16C2nm, which occurred 10.5 billion years ago. It is the farthest star explosion ever seen, scientists say.
Credit: Mat Smith and DES collaboration
An extraordinarily powerful "superluminous supernova" that occurred 10.5 billion years ago is the most distant star explosion ever observed, a new study reports.
The Big Bang occurred about 13.8 billion years ago, which means that light from the superluminous supernova (SLSN) has been streaking through space for about three-quarters of the universe's existence.
Astronomers first spotted SLSNs just a decade or so ago. As the name suggests, these objects are extreme versions of "normal" supernovas. Several different phenomena may trigger these events, including the infall of material onto neutron stars, the rapidly rotating corpses of once-massive stars, study team members said. [Supernova Photos: Great Images of Star Explosions]
The newfound SLSN is known as DES16C2nm, because it was first spotted by the Dark Energy Survey, an international research effort that aims to better understand the mysterious force thought to be responsible for the universe's accelerating expansion. The initial detection came in August 2016; DES16C2nm's brightness and distance were confirmed two months later by astronomers using the Very Large and Magellan telescopes in Chile and Hawaii's Keck Observatory.
"It's thrilling to be part of the survey that has discovered the oldest known supernova," study lead author Mathew Smith, of the University of Southampton in England, said in a statement. "DES16C2nm is extremely distant, extremely bright, and extremely rare — not the sort of thing you stumble across every day as an astronomer."
The superluminous supernova DES16C2nm flares up as a glowing dot in a region of space that had previously been dark.
Credit: Mat Smith and DES collaboration
The discovery of DES16C2nm holds more than mere gee-whiz value, Smith added.
"The ultraviolet light from SLSN informs us of the amount of metal produced in the explosion and the temperature of the explosion itself, both of which are key to understanding what causes and drives these cosmic explosions," he said.
DES16C2nm may not keep its distance record for lon
"Finding more distant events, to determine the variety and sheer number of these events, is the next step," study co-author Mark Sullivan, also of the University of Southampton, said in the same statement. "Now [that] we know how to find these objects at even greater distances, we are actively looking for more of them as part of the Dark Energy Survey."
The Dark Energy Survey is a five-year project that kicked off in 2013. It uses a 570-megapixel camera, mounted on a telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Chilean Andes, to study 300 million distant galaxies throughout the cosmos.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that DES16C2nm lies 10.5 billion light-years from Earth. Because of the expansion of the universe, the object is actually much farther away than that. The previous version also equated SLSN with hypernovae; in reality, these are two similar but distinct types of star explosions.
‘Giant’ 300,000-Year-Old Hand Axes Used By Mystery Ancestor Found In Spain
‘Giant’ 300,000-Year-Old Hand Axes Used By Mystery Ancestor Found In Spain
Researchers have uncovered ‘giant’ hand axes believed to date back between 200,000 and 300,000 years. It is believed the hand axes were used by a mysterious human ancestor to cut prey in prehistoric Europe, report experts.
The ‘giant’ tools were used by ancient man to process hard materials such as wood and carcasses and were discovered at an archaeological site at Proto Maior in Spain.
Furthermore, a recent study carried out on the giant hand axes, suggests that there may have been two species of ancient humans, who lived close to each other for long periods of time.
Image Credit: Eduardo Mendez Quintas
One group used technologies recently imported from Africa, while the others were long-standing residents.
In Porto Maior, located in Galicia, a group of archaeologists, led by experts from the National Center for Human Evolution Research, have found an important repository of large tools dating back nearly 300,000 years.
The tools have a distinctive style known as Acheulian, which is seen much more frequently in Africa and the Middle East than in Europe.
The nature of the finding suggests that humans may have used these tools to cross the Mediterranean 300,000 years ago, but we have no idea how.
It also shows that the Acheulean style coexisted for a long period of time with another style of tools, most likely belonging to a different species of primitive humans.
The conclusions, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, point out that although similar tools had already been found in southwestern Europe, they had never been found in this amount. Experts have recovered a total of 159 pieces, with a weight of 118 kilograms.
The pieces are larger and heavier than those found in other parts of Europe, while they are consistent with those of other continents.
‘Porto Maior introduces further complexity to this overlapping technological pattern, and suggests that distinct early human populations of different geographical origins coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene (between 773,000 and 125,000 years ago)’, researchers, led by Dr. Martina Demuro, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide wrote in the Conversation.
To explain this finding, two theories are currently considered by experts.
The first involves an African population crossing the Mediterranean, while the second indicates an independent invention of a very similar style.
The defenders of the second theory call attention to the subtle differences between the European findings and those of Africa.
The authors of the study, on the other hand, are inclined towards the African option, arguing; “Any hypothetical reinvention of Acheulian technology in Europe would have occurred 1 million years after the appearance of Acheulean in Africa in a different environmental and technocultural context, and most likely by a human species that was very different from Homo ergaster, the species responsible for this technology.”
“The discovery of Porto Maior is further evidence of the arrival of this technology from Africa, given the similarities that the site shares with deposits of African tools,” conclude experts.
Featured image credit:The large tools are consistent with a culture known as Acheulean.Eduardo Mendez Quintas
Are The Mysterious Dogu Figurines Depictions Of Ancient Astronauts?
Are The Mysterious Dogu Figurines Depictions Of Ancient Astronauts?
The so-called Dogu are relatively small humanoid figures made at the end of the Jōmon period (14,000-400 BC) in Japan. The curious figurines have a number of strange characteristics that make them some of the most unique pieces of ancient art on the surface of the planet.
What do the Dogu have that makes them so mysterious?
Well, if you look at them, they kinda’ resemble some sort of humanoid wearing a suit? Maybe a spacesuit? The figurines are depicted with helmets or goggles. They are also depicted having strangely shaped ‘elongated’ heads, and some of them have almond shaped eyes. The eyes are nearly always depicted disproportionally in relation to the body.
The most interesting part perhaps is the fact that the Dogu Figurines are meant to represent the ‘Gods’.
Shakōki-dogū (遮光器土偶) (1000–400 BCE), “goggle-eyed type” figurine. Tokyo National Museum
Most Dogu figures have breasts, small waist, and large eyes and are considered by many to be representations of goddesses. Many have a large abdomen associated with a pregnancy, suggesting that the Jomon considered them to be mother goddesses.
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, these figures “suggest an association with fertility and shamanic rites.”
Made of clay, these figures take on many fascinating forms.
The Dogu tend to have large faces, small arms, hands, and a compact body. Some seem to wear glasses or have “heart-shaped” faces.
Most have marks on their faces, chests, and shoulders. Nearly all of the Dogu figures have been discovered in graves or stone circles, indicating through the location they were discovered in, some sort of religious or shamanistic use.
Experts have identified four types of Dogu figurines:
Another interesting fact is that the Dogu figurines are believed to be exclusive to the Jōmon period and disappeared in the next historical period, the Yayoi period.
Regarding the Jomon ceramics, the Dogu have several styles depending on the area and type of associated exhumation. According to the National Museum of Japanese History, researchers have recovered around 15,000 Dogu figurines so far. Most of the Dogu have been found in eastern Japan and it is rare to find any in the west of the country.
Despite the fact that the figurines were associated with the Gods, the exact purpose of the Dogu is not yet clear, but most likely the Dogu acted like the effigy of people manifesting some kind of magic or shamanic purposes. As noted by Timothy Insoll, author of the book “The new hakodate jomon culture center, minamikayabe, Japan” it may have been believed that illnesses could be transferred into the Dogu, then destroyed, clearing the illness, or any other misfortune.
Gods or Ancient Astronauts?
Well, what’s the difference, right?
Ancient Astronaut theorists offer interesting explanations. Some authors believe that these figurines represent otherworldly visitors, extraterrestrial beings that came to Earth thousands of years ago.
The Dogu figurines appear humanoid but are certainly anything but human. The mysterious ‘suit’ that some of these figures appear to wear, helmets, and what some describe as goggles are just a few of the characteristics unfamiliar with that period in human history. This raises a few interesting questions: Did the ancient artists see beings that resembled the Dogu? Or are the mysterious figures the result of ancient mankind’s imagination?
Given the enigmatic nature and peculiar characteristics of the figurines, the Dogu have been part in numerous controversial theories. As noted by popular researcher and best-selling author Erich von Däniken, the Dogu (referred in the text as the “Japanese statue of Tokomai”) “…have modern fastenings and eye apertures on their helmets”, an attribution made in the final chapter of his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?.
Nick Pope is one of the world’s leading experts on conspiracy theories. He has discussed the subject on numerous TV shows, and written news stories and features about conspiracy theories (including tie-in publicity material for the second X-Files movie, and extensive material for truTV’s Conspiratorium), covering topics that include JFK, the moon landings, 9/11, UFOs, and many other conspiracy theories – some well-known, others less well-known. If you’ve ever read one of those media features listing the world’s top 10 conspiracy theories, it may well have been written by Nick Pope!
Having investigated UFOs for the British Government, Nick Pope has been the subject of some conspiracy theories himself, with many people believing that he was part of a government cover-up aimed at hiding the truth about UFOs. Despite having left the UK’s Ministry of Defense in 2006, the belief that he’s still secretly working for the government is widely held in the conspiracy theory community.
Nick Pope is a conspiracy theory skeptic. While he thinks that challenging the government’s position on issues is an important part of any free, open and democratic society, he believes that many conspiracy theories arise from a lack of critical thinking, and a poor knowledge of the way in which government works. He’s particularly concerned when conspiracy theories are used as justification for anti-Semitic views, or have fueled the anger of people with mental health issues.
In his work as an author, journalist and broadcaster, Nick Pope has covered conspiracy theories extensively. The following article is a distillation of his current position, and is meant as a quotable resource for academics, students, journalists and other media professionals looking at the subject.
Introduction
This article is a personal overview of the conspiracy theory ‘genre’. While I’ll be citing a few individual conspiracy theories to illustrate some particular points, it’s not my intention to drill down into any individual conspiracy theories in great detail here. Many others have done this and in a sense, the purpose of this article isn’t to debate whether any individual conspiracy theories are true or false, but to make some more general observations about the subject as a whole.
Personal Background
I write this article with a number of different hats on. Firstly, I worked for the British Government for 21 years, at the Ministry of Defense (MoD). Accordingly, I have considerable knowledge of the way in which government works and – in relation to the topic in hand – have a pretty good idea of the boundaries: what governments do and what they don’t do. Secondly, one of my MoD jobs involved investigating UFO sightings reported to the Department, as well as handling policy, media enquiries and public correspondence on the issue. Given that many people believe the MoD is covering up the truth about UFOs, this exposed me directly to accusations concerning conspiracy theories. Thirdly – and related to the previous point – despite having left the MoD in 2006, I’m the subject of a conspiracy theory myself. The accusation is that my departure from MoD was a ruse and that I’m still secretly on the payroll, with a role variously described as being either to put out disinformation about UFOs, to infiltrate/discredit the UFO community, to acclimatize people to an extraterrestrial reality ahead of ‘Disclosure’ (official confirmation of extraterrestrial visitation), or to promote belief in (non-existent) extraterrestrials ahead of a “false flag alien invasion”. Such mutually-contradictory theories are not unusual in the conspiracy theory community – see, for example, the work done by Dr. Karen Douglas at University of Kent, who discovered that those who believed Osama bin Laden was already dead before the US raid that purportedly killed him in 2011 were also more likely to believe that he is still alive. Fourthly, I now work as a journalist and broadcaster covering – among other subjects – conspiracy theories. Fifthly, through speaking at various conferences, I have had considerable exposure to the conspiracy theory community.
One of Nick Pope's newspaper features on consipiracy theories
Definitions and Terminology
This subject is not helped by the lack of agreed terminology and definitions of words and phrases such as “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory”, or by the relationship with words like “collusion”. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines conspiracy as “an agreement between two or more persons to do something criminal, illegal or reprehensible” – but what constitutes “reprehensible” is a subjective judgement. The OED defines collusion as “a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others”.
Related to this is the way in which “conspiracy theorist” is sometimes used as a pejorative. This is unhelpful, given that some conspiracy theories are true, and it leads to situations where 9/11 conspiracy theorists refer to the US Government’s version of what took place as the “OCT” (Official Conspiracy Theory). This dogfight over language muddies the waters before we even get to the issues.
It’s worth noting that the conspiracy theory community has a number of linguistic tropes. “Sheeple” is used to describe people who are not “awake” in a political sense and tend not to question the ‘party line’. Such terms are combined in phrases like “wake up, sheeple”. “Crisis actors” are people alleged to play the parts of grieving relatives or bystanders at fake mass-shootings or terror attacks. The bad guys in the conspiracy theory universe are sometimes individual governments, but often more shadowy forces such as the Illuminati, the New World Order, or some variation on this theme. Dissent from fellow conspiracy theorists with differing views is often dealt with by stating or implying that the dissenter is a “shill”, secretly working with the bad guys. Conspiracy theorists know just enough about the world of intelligence to be familiar with terms such as “useful idiot”, “disinformation”, “psyop”, “agent provocateur”, “false flag” and “cointel”, without really understanding the realities.
Dissent from outside the conspiracy theory community is generally ignored. The Popular Mechanics investigation into the most widely held 9/11 conspiracy theories is often dismissed out of hand, as is the 9/11 Commission Report. Most 9/11 conspiracy theorists haven’t read the latter, and justify this by saying that it’s obvious propaganda and is itself part of the conspiracy.
Conspiracy Theories and Government
It’s an important but often overlooked fact that a common thread that runs through most conspiracy theories is that the event under discussion generally involves government or some official agency. Only a very few conspiracy theories (e.g. “Paul McCartney is dead”) don’t involve the government and even here, one can make a case for saying that ‘Big Business’ is an extension of government in the minds of conspiracy theorists, and that there were obvious financial reasons for covering up McCartney’s death. But the fact that most conspiracy theories revolve around the supposed actions of government, the military and the intelligence agencies is extremely important in understanding the root causes of conspiracy theories, and suggests that distrust of government lies at the heart of the matter. Sometimes, however, the tendency to focus on specific conspiracy theories can blind us to such overarching points.
Conspiracy Theories and Popular Culture
It would be remiss not to mention the issue of how conspiracy theories are portrayed in popular culture. In a TV series like The X-Files or in films such as The Matrix trilogy, not only could the main protagonists be categorized as conspiracy theorists and portrayed as heroes, but they live in a world where the conspiracy theories are true and where – in the Matrix universe – reality itself is a lie. Movies like Conspiracy Theory and Mercury Rising are also good examples, as are numerous sci-fi movies dealing with UFOs/extraterrestrials, where part of the plot often involves the government or the military being aware of the alien presence, but trying to keep the knowledge from the public. Arguably, Hollywood portrays conspiracy theories as more likely to be true than is the case in real life, and portrays conspiracy theorists in a more favorable light than the media portrays their real-life counterparts. It’s unclear what effect such a portrayal (generally positive) of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists has (it may act as a partial validation of people’s fringe beliefs, especially if they empathize with ‘heroic struggles’ in conspiracy theory fiction), but it’s worthy of study. It also highlights another irony of the conspiracy theory universe, where people often allege that Hollywood is part of the ‘system’ and – particularly in relation to extraterrestrials – is complicit in a campaign to acclimatize/indoctrinate people to a particular view.
Conspiracy Theories, the Internet, and the Multi-Media World
The internet has played a huge role in giving voices to those who, previously, would have had little or no chance of having their say. Social media sites have played a large part in this too. The Arab Spring is an oft-cited example of this. More generally, there has been a fundamental shift in the concept of journalism, where the center of gravity has moved away from the mainstream news media. A good example of this shift is the fashion industry, where the rising (and arguably disproportionate) influence of a handful of influential bloggers has caused huge tensions, but where changes reflect a new power dynamic. The use of sites such as Twitter to name and shame celebrities who have taken out ‘super injunctions’ to try to prevent negative news stories being published is another example of this.
The internet has had a similar and massive effect upon conspiracy theories. It’s arguable that every issue and point of view has been changed and amplified by the internet, but it seems that alternative viewpoints have been disproportionally affected. Previously, fringe issues often tended to be squeezed out, but they now have more of an outlet.
Tied to this is the increase in media outlets. I was brought up in the UK when there were three TV stations: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Nowadays, there are a multitude of TV stations, and while a lot of material is repeated, there’s more demand for new content than has ever previously been the case. All this broadcasting time – and the same is true for radio – has to be filled, and this gives conspiracy theories an outlet that they have not previously enjoyed. Indeed, some networks such as Edge Media TV (later known as Controversial TV and broadcast on Sky Channel 200) were almost exclusively devoted to alternative views and conspiracy theories.
It’s not clear whether the rise of the internet and the transition to a multi-media society has significantly changed people’s views, as opposed to having held up a mirror to views that were already there. Again, this is a point worthy of further study.
Notwithstanding the above, there remains an odd disconnect. 9/11 conspiracy theories, for example, have a huge ‘internet footprint’, but enjoy comparatively little mainstream media coverage. The same could be said about other topics, such as ‘chemtrails’. Skeptics might say this is a good thing, as it shows that that the ‘evidence bar’ is set at an appropriately high level, which alternative theories about 9/11 have yet to reach. As a journalist, however, my intuitive feeling is that this is wrong, and that even if pretty much every conspiracy theory relating to 9/11 is flawed (as I believe to be the case), the fact that so many people believe otherwise should lead to greater mainstream news media engagement – even if it’s the belief in these conspiracy theories that is, itself, the news story. The danger otherwise is that large numbers of people feel disenfranchised by the media, and believe the media is letting them down by not asking tough questions of the authorities. Worse still, some people may – and do – come to believe that the media (the “controlled media” as various people in the conspiracy theory community are fond of saying) is complicit in the cover-up.
The announcement on the BBC of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 is a good example of how people come to believe that elements of the media are “controlled”. A newsreader announced that the building had collapsed while it was still standing. Only later did it collapse. The building was on fire and the firefighters had been pulled out, so collapse was arguably imminent, but how did the collapse get announced before it had actually occurred? Let’s look at the possible explanations. Had the newscaster misunderstood, or perhaps misheard what the producer said via the earpiece? It was a fast-moving and stressful situation for everyone in the newsroom, and that’s the likely explanation. But a surprising number of people believe that the BBC knew about the collapse in advance (because these people think the whole attack was pre-planned by Western authorities, or elements thereof), but weren’t following the script carefully enough, and thus let the cat out of the bag by announcing a pre-planned event a little too early. As an ex-government official who now works as a broadcaster and journalist, I can’t help but observe how absurd this is: the idea that a small group of conspirators would plan an insidious false flag attack that – if discovered – would shake the Establishment to its core and result in jail terms (and possibly the death penalty) for all those involved – and then tip off one of the largest news organizations on the face of the planet. But for the purposes of this article, the point isn’t whether or not such things are true – which will always be a subject of debate – but whether people believethey’re true, which is undeniably the case. Such a view of the media is unfortunate, because from Watergate in the US to more recent UK stories such as cash for questions, cash for honors and MPs’ expenses, the media actually has a good, proven track record of going after powerful Establishment figures when suspicions or allegations of wrongdoing emerge.
Contradictory Conspiracy Theories
I mentioned earlier the work of Dr. Karen Douglas at University of Kent, who found that those people who believed Osama bin Laden was already dead before the US raid that purportedly killed him were also more likely to believe that he’s still alive. This may seem counter-intuitive, if not downright absurd, but it’s symptomatic of a wider issue with some conspiracy theories, where mutually-contradictory theories are put forward for what’s alleged to be going on. The chemtrail conspiracy is a good example, with some people believing the aim of this supposed chemical spraying campaign is to alter the weather, while others think it’s aimed at behavior modification, or that it’s part of a campaign to poison people, as part of a mass-extermination plan. Clearly, even if chemtrails were real, most conspiracy theory belief about them would be false. We see the same with 9/11 conspiracy theories: some people believe it was an “inside job”, some people believe America “looked the other way”, some people believe aircraft hit the Twin Towers, while other people (the so-called “no-planers”) think the aircraft seen hitting the buildings were holograms and that the buildings were brought down by a controlled demolition (or, at the extreme end of the belief spectrum, some sort of anti-gravity weapon). In situations like this, the proponents of more extreme beliefs are often accused of being shills, infiltrating the so-called “Truth Movement” and discrediting it by making overly ridiculous claims.
Close, But No Cigar
Few conspiracy theories are without some element of half-truth or ambiguity. There are apparently reasonable points that, at first, give one pause for thought. The CIA, for example, was aware of 9/11 hijackers Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi, but didn’t put them on the State Department’s TIPOFF watchlist, or inform the FBI. Does this mean that the authorities knew 9/11 was going to happen but “looked the other way”? In fact, such failings are not uncommon, and in most cases are the result of factors such as overwork, information overload and – critically – poor intelligence-sharing between different agencies. On this latter point, inter-agency rivalry, mistrust and even antipathy is much more common than the public (who often view government as a single entity) are generally aware. To these factors can be added the tendency of people entrusted with classified or sensitive information to be overly-protective (particularly in situations where a key concern is to avoid compromising a sensitive source), to the extent that it becomes useless – the intelligence isn’t actionable. So using the Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi example, what may look suspicious to the layperson is immediately recognizable as standard practice to those of us with a background in government/intelligence.
Conspiracy Theories and Science
Related to the above are arguments that may initially seem scientific, but on closer examination (which often doesn’t happen) aren’t. Again, 9/11 provides a nice example. Conspiracy theorists point out that aviation fuel doesn’t burn at a high enough temperature to melt steel. Therefore, they argue, aircraft alone, slamming into the Twin Towers, couldn’t have brought the buildings down. This opens the door to speculation about a controlled demolition. While the argument might initially sound reasonable, more careful consideration leads us to the answer: steel loses its structural integrity at a much lower temperature. This, plus gravity, was more than enough to bring down the buildings.
A basic understanding of science would result in a more informed debate about many conspiracy theories. The chemtrail conspiracy is a good example of this. Undeniably, there have been government/military attempts to modify the weather. Operation Popeye (cloud seeding during the Vietnam War, aimed at making it rain on the Ho Chi Minh trail, thus bogging down the main Vietcong supply route) is a well-documented example of this. So, if chemtrails are real, it’s scientifically plausible that they have something to do with weather control or even climate change. However, researching crop spraying and seeing how low the aircraft have to fly for the spray to have a discernible effect on the crops should – even for believers in chemtrails – eliminate the idea that they have anything to do with poisoning people or modifying their behaviour. You couldn’t target a spray with any degree of accuracy from the heights at which it’s alleged chemtrails are discharged (commercial aircraft cruising height of around 35,000 feet), and any chemicals sprayed from such heights would have a negligible effect on anyone at ground level. In any case, the economy of scale argument could be brought into play – why not simply put chemical into the water supply? Surely even the New World Order would choose a cheaper and easier strategy if one was available! The point is, applying science can eliminate some aspects of a conspiracy theory and result in a more focused debate on that part which remains.
Conspiracy Theories – The Good
Some conspiracy theories turn out to be true, and while governments don’t lie as often as many people seem to think, they constantly dissemble and spin. Accordingly, a healthy skepticism in respect of what we’re told by government (and the authorities more generally) is actually a very good thing, and is a healthy indicator of a modern, open, democratic society. More generally, it’s good in terms of critical thinking. So it’s right to doubt and challenge what we’re told by those in power, and to ask searching questions if something doesn’t look or feel right. But there’s a danger in going too far and in assuming that because one conspiracy theory is true, most or all of them are (The few academic studies done into this suggest that if you believe in one conspiracy theory, you’re more likely to believe in others). As ever, the trick is to get the balance right. As the old saying goes, it’s good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.
With this in mind, it would be a good thing (and would help a more informed debate) if conspiracy theorists and skeptics could find some common ground in terms of a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true. Interestingly, one that’s often cited as true (that the Nazis started the Reichstag fire to discredit the communists and consolidate their power) is the subject of more debate between historians than most people realize. Conversely, few people on either side of the debate are familiar with one of the best documented conspiracy theories in recent years, i.e. the fact that senior figures in the Northern Ireland Office, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Catholic Church knew (or strongly suspected) who was responsible for the bombings in Claudy, County Londonderry, in 1972 (attacks in which nine people died), and that actively conspired to cover it up, because the alleged perpetuator was a Catholic priest. The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman’s 2010 report into the bombing and the subsequent events found that this conspiracy almost certainly took place, and their conclusion was widely reported by the mainstream media – including the BBC.
The review of the original investigation into the Claudy bombings makes interesting reading for those interested in conspiracy theories (on whichever side of the debate) because of what it tells us about inquiries in modern times. When wrongdoing (including conspiracy – even if it’s only a conspiracy of silence) is found, it’s generally exposed, with criticisms being made. The Hutton Inquiry (into the apparent suicide of government weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly) is seen by some as a whitewash, and itself part of a conspiracy to cover up what really happened. But if people use this to imply that all official inquiries are going to give the government an easy ride and support the party line, they’re mistaken. The Saville Report (into the Bloody Sunday shootings) was extremely critical of the Army and concluded that a soldier fired the first shot. Charles Haddon-Cave QC’s report into the fatal crash of an RAF Nimrod aircraft in Afghanistan in 2006 contains damning criticisms of the MoD and defense contractors. The ongoing Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot is likely to contain robust criticisms of various government figures in relation to the Iraq War, though it’s unlikely to support the conspiracy theory that “we went to war on a lie” – i.e. that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Again, all this should be required reading for conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theory skeptics alike, as it’s a useful template for how the authorities respond when things go catastrophically wrong.
Conspiracy Theories – The Bad and the Ugly
There’s a dark side to some conspiracy theories. Firstly, the irony is that while they can sometimes be healthy in terms of encouraging critical thinking, they can also be extremely unhealthy, in terms of people believing unsubstantiated rumors simply because they accord with their (generally anti-Establishment) worldview. Far more worrying, however, are three other factors.
Firstly, some conspiracy theories, particularly those involving a ‘New World Order’, imply that the world is secretly run by a small group of families and corporations – a sort of ‘shadow government’. In relation to such ideas, one often hears the phrase “conspiracy of international bankers” or “small group of families who secretly rule the world”. Often, such wording is used to mask anti-Semitism. The accusation of anti-Semitism is often met with the defense that those involved are only against “Zionism”, but have nothing against Jewish people more generally. In some cases this is true, and on a related issue it’s a dangerous situation where any criticism of the Government of Israel is automatically labeled as being anti-Semitic. But in other cases the defense about being anti-Zionist sounds like a convenient ‘get out’, not a million miles away from the cliché about the racist who begins an argument with a phrase “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got black friends”. Even if not motivated by racism, such views make it easier for racism to take root. At a UFO conference held in Leeds in 2011, for example, a question from the floor turned into a lengthy comment which included the sentiment that Hollywood was “run by the Jews”. Significant numbers of audience members (and even some of the other speakers on the panel) seemed to be nodding in agreement, and only one person in the audience was courageous enough to take the individual concerned to task.
Secondly, medical conspiracies (e.g. those surrounding Swine flu) can be dangerous. Many people believe that certain diseases were bio-engineered deliberately, and that they – and/or the associated vaccination programmes – are part of a conspiracy to exterminate large numbers of people, to bring the world population down to a more manageable/sustainable level and – perhaps – to bring about a New World Order. If people who are ill with such diseases use conspiracy websites to inform their decisions, as opposed to seeking medical advice, the consequences could be fatal. As a practical illustration of this, I once saw a father post a question about vaccinations for his baby on the Facebook wall of a conspiracy theorist who had recently expressed the view that a false flag alien invasion would be staged at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics.
The third – and possibly least commented upon – area where conspiracy theories can be dangerous relates to the feelings of rage and powerlessness that they can engender. With certain personality types, this runs the risk of making them feel they have no stake in the democratic system, and no conventional way for their voice to be heard. Though the situation is not clear-cut, there are very strong indications that John Patrick Bedell (who opened fire on Pentagon police officers in 2010 and was subsequently shot dead) was motivated in part by 9/11 conspiracy theories, and that Jared Lee Loughner (who killed six people in Tucson in 2011) was obsessed with conspiracy theories on 9/11, the New World Order and Mayan prophesies apparently suggesting that the world would end in 2012. This is a controversial area and one on which experts in psychopathology are best-placed to comment. One could doubtless argue that such people would always find something to latch onto, that tips them over the edge. But at the very least, we must be mindful of the negative effects that conspiracy theories can have on individuals, and indeed on groups of people. The think-tank Demos, for example, has done some interesting research into the link between conspiracy theories and extremism.
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
There’s an interesting aspect of some conspiracy theories that’s worth knowing if one is to truly understand the mindset of some conspiracy theorists. On one level it looks like a cheap trick, but on another level it offers a useful insight into the conspiracy theory universe. Again, the supposed false flag alien invasion at the 2012 Olympic Games is the perfect example. If it happened, self-evidently proponents of such a theory would have been proved correct and would have claimed credit. But when it didn’t happen, the ‘get out’ was that those involved prematurely exposed the New World Order’s plan and thus forced them to back down. In this case and in others, conspiracy theorists can actually take credit for what, in reality, is nothing more than a failed prediction.
National Differences
As a British citizen who now lives in the United States, the issue of national differences in conspiracy theories is of particular interest to me. It’s noticeable that a number of US conspiracy theories (e.g. those about the Sandy Hook school shootings and the Boston Marathon bombings) revolve around the central premise that the intention is to create an environment where the government will be able to declare martial law and “take away our guns”, thus overturning the right to bear arms that’s enshrined in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Interestingly, proponents of such theories seldom cite what might initially sound like a compelling argument, i.e. the fact that a school shooting in Scotland (the 1996 Dunblane school massacre) did lead to extensive gun control in the UK. However, even if this was to be cited as a precedent for how governments can clamp down on private gun ownership, it would be based on a misunderstanding of the fundamental differences in US and UK public attitudes to firearms, and on a failure to appreciate the unique protections afforded by the Second Amendment. Such factors must be borne in mind when looking at conspiracy theories regarding mass shootings – arguably one of the most prevalent types of conspiracy theory in modern day America.
A Testable Hypothesis
Belief in conspiracy theories clearly has a number of root causes, including mistrust of government, feelings of personal disempowerment, and lack of knowledge of the way in which government, the military and the intelligence agencies work. It seems to me that much of this is testable. On the knowledge of government point in particular, where answers are either right or wrong, it would be possible to conduct double blind experiments which could score someone’s believe in various conspiracy theories and their knowledge of officialdom, to see if there’s a relationship. I’ve discussed this with at least one academic (and have drawn up some questions for a study) but I believe further work in this area would be fruitful.
Conclusion
As I pointed out previously, belief in conspiracy theories has been the subject of comparatively little academic study. Exceptions include the aforementioned Demos work on conspiracy theories and extremism, Cambridge University’s Conspiracy and Democracy project, led by Sir Richard Evans, and a March 2015 conference on conspiracy theories organized by Professor Joseph Uscinski at University of Miami. However, given the profound impact conspiracy theories can have on people’s beliefs and actions, more work is needed, and while I support academic research into this subject, I believe we need to be more inclusive. A wider conversation on the subject needs to take place, involving not just social scientists and academics, but the media and – critically – conspiracy theorists themselves. It’s this latter engagement that will prove most difficult (because of conspiracy theorists’ mistaken perception that conspiracy theory skeptics are Establishment debunkers), but is essential for any proper understanding of the subject. It seems to me that a greater understanding of the conspiracy theory community and their mindset is a prerequisite to such engagement. In this respect, blanket dismissal of such people as crazies is singularly unhelpful.
Conspiracy theories are an important part of contemporary belief. In our globalized society, with its 24/7 media coverage, conspiracy theories start almost immediately after newsworthy disasters, high-profile deaths, and mass-shootings. They then spread rapidly, in our increasingly interconnected world. Even if most popularly-held conspiracy theories are demonstrably false, dismissing conspiracy theory culture in its wider sense would be to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Rather, we should be asking why people believe such things, and what this tells us, not just about the individuals concerned, but about 21st Century society and culture as a whole.
Who Or How Were Earth’s Ancient Structures Built? Ancient Aliens or Forgotten Technology? … Or Both?
Who Or How Were Earth’s Ancient Structures Built? Ancient Aliens or Forgotten Technology? … Or Both?
Exactly how were the great pyramids in Egypt and Mexico built?
How were the famous Inca & Mayan stones squashed into each other?
How was the great stones of Stonehenge placed high on top of each other?
These questions and many more have fascinated people for centuries. Not only are they structures which were built during periods where technology was supposed to be very basic but the more we learn about them the more they baffle us.
For example, the Sphinx and the Pyramids in Egypt are thought to be older than what we are being told. Geologists say that weathering patterns on the Sphinx show rain damage which puts the building date of the Sphinx well past the date of the Egyptians we are lead to believe were responsible for building it.
The pyramids themselves hold many mysteries, much of it appears as scientific code. The layout of the pyramids in Giza are an exact copy of the stars in the Orion’s Belt constellation. Spread out over miles of Egypt’s land the smaller pyramids also line up with the stars of the same constellation. Is Egypt a star map of where our ancestors came from?
More interesting is the coordinates of the pyramids at Giza in Egypt . Their coordinates are 29.9792458 degrees North and what is the speed of light in a vacuum? 299.792,458 metres per second. Coincidence or planned as a message to modern man?
However it should be mentioned that modern latitude is set so that the prime meridian goes through Greenwich England which did not exist at the time the pyramids were built so whatever system they would have used would not have been this one… unless… they were time travellers and knew what system would be in place several thousand years later. Now that would blow the socks of modern man if that were true!
The pyramids are also mentioned on an ancient Sumerian tablet. The Sumerians were in Egypt thousands of years before the ancient Egyptians who are believed to be responsible for building them. This ages them thousands of years more than what is publicly believed.
The Great pyramid hasn’t dropped more than a feet yet the weight of the structure is immense. Modern skyscrapers are designed to drop more once built. The blocks of stone that the pyramids are made from are huge and weigh so much that even modern cranes would struggle to move them. As far as we know there were no modern cranes around.
So how were they built? How were the big stones of Stonehenge lifted? Were there aliens involved in the construction? Was alien technology used? Was there an Atlantis type super race of ancient humans building these structures or did basic man know more about physics than we believe.
The Mayans, Egyptians and Incas are all supposed to have cosmology knowledge and understanding which far surpassed that of which we believe they should have so did they have a better understanding of quantum physics and the little known vibrational physics than we first thought?
The reason I say vibrational physics is that there is a story of a Swedish dr who went to Tibet in 1939 to visit the Dalai Lama. It is said that while he was there the monks were building a high wall using heavy stones. The story goes that he observed the monks lifting up the heavy stones by levitating them using sound.
The monks set up drums and horns in an arc shape a certain distance away from the stones and then began to make sounds which lifted up the heavy stones and they were then pushed into place. Meditation and Eastern philosophies put a lot of emphasis on sound. Especially the Ohm sound which is the Universal vibration rate sound.
Did our forefathers know something that we are just beginning to understand? Was this kept a secret from us?
The Swedish doctor apparently recorded this on film but the film was confiscated from him by British authorities and never seen again. Funny that?
We know about the law of attraction, things which vibrate with the same or similar frequency are drawn to each other like magnets. We have seen what some metals do when they are near magnets but everything has a vibration and a specific rate so that means that everything can be lifted up like a magnet if you hit the right frequency.
Acoustic Levitation in Egypt – Ancient High Technology
Alien abductees talk about being lifted up out of houses. Do aliens know something about acoustic levitation or vibrational physics? Did they give that knowledge to us years ago and has been kept secret by those in the know or did ancient man know about it but it somehow got forgotten about? Maybe it was lost when modern style governments were formed and knew that there would be no profit or tax in construction if everyone had access to this knowledge.
If you are not sure whether you have been abducted by aliens then use this checklist here to find out:
Another puzzling ancient mystery is the stone walls in south and central America. They have been cut and shaped to fit so tight and snug that even to this day people cannot slide pieces of paper between them.
They are also oddly shaped which is interesting. What people do not know is that how they were carved and made. There have been stories and theories that say that the Ancient Mayan and Incan builders were able to soften the stones and mold them into position.
Megalithic Softening of Stone Part 1
A very old story spoke about how an explorer discovered that a mixture made from plants which were found in central America would somehow soften the stone which was then pushed and molded into shape. How true this is no one knows.
What is interesting is that there are very little scratch and tooling marks to see. We do have thousands of years of weathering so the smallest marks might have been eroded but the stone work across central and south America is pretty impressive.
Maybe the stone was an ancient version of concrete and were molded and fashioned into shapes. This is another theory being put forward today.
What do you think? Were our ancestors smarter than we give them credit for using technology we no longer use or were these impressive structures built by or with the help of Ancient Aliens?
Click the nav button below to read all about the mysterious Bosnian Pyramids.
A Floating 'Brain' Will Assist Astronauts Aboard the Space Station
A Floating 'Brain' Will Assist Astronauts Aboard the Space Station
By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer
CIMON says: "I'm ready to be an astronaut!"
Credit: Airbus
The crew on board the International Space Station (ISS) will soon welcome a new member — one that is 3D-printed from metal and plastic and is described by its creators as "a kind of flying brain."
It goes by the name CIMON, short for "Crew Interactive Mobile Companion." Built by the aerospace design company Airbus in collaboration with IBM, CIMON houses artificial intelligence (AI) in an autonomous, spherical body that would "float" in the space station's microgravity environment, with a screen that can display data readouts for astronauts — or present an image of a friendly face — as well as a voice shaped by IBM's AI technology.
As an "intelligent" machine, CIMON could help the ISS crew to solve problems during their routine work by processing and displaying diagnostic data. But its neural network — a computer system that works like the human brain — would enable it to go a step further and also engage with astronauts as a "colleague," according to the statement.
CIMON weighs about 11 lbs. (5 kilograms) and is already "training" with an astronaut — Alexander Gerst, who represented the European Space Agency (ESA) on the ISS from May to November 2014. Gerst will return to the ISS, bringing CIMON along, from June to October 2018, on ESA's Horizons mission.
Since 2016, a team of 50 technicians has been working to prepare the AI for its trip into space, feeding it data about the ISS and ensuring that the robot can orient itself and move freely. At the same time that CIMON was learning about the layout of the ISS, it was also becoming familiar with its astronaut colleague Gerst, through photos and voice samples.
Once CIMON is in space, astronauts and the AI will work together on a series of tasks that includes working with crystals, solving a Rubik's Cube and performing a medical experiment in which CIMON will serve as an interactive camera, Airbus representatives said in the statement.
This Star Shines with the Light of Millions of Suns!
This Star Shines with the Light of Millions of Suns!
By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor
An image of the Whirlpool Galaxy, home of the newfound neutron star ULX. X-ray light seen by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in purple, while optical light from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is red, green and blue.
Credit: M.Brightman et al./NASA/CXC/Caltech; Optical: NASA/STScI
Astronomers have identified the fourth member of a rare type of celestial object that shines with the brilliance of millions of suns.
Known as ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, these objects were long considered to be black holes. Recent research has identified three of them as extremely dense neutron stars, and now this new finding brings the total of known ULXs to four. The discovery also provides clues about how these objects can shine so brightly.
In the 1980s, astronomers found extremely bright X-ray sources in the outer regions of galaxies, far from the supermassive black holes in their hearts. It wasn't until 2014that observations from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and other space telescopes revealed that some of these objects are actually neutron stars, the dense cores left behind after stars explode in fiery supernovas. [The Strangest Things in Space … Ever]
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers targeted a ULX in the Whirlpool Galaxy, a galaxy with a pronounced spiral structure that lies approximately 28 million light-years away. They found an unusual dip in the light spectrum streaming from the object, which they identified as coming from charged particles circling a magnetic field. Because black holes don't have magnetic fields, the dip signaled that the ULX was instead a neutron star, the scientists said.
With the highest density of any known space object, neutron stars can beam radiation across the galaxy.
Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist
Neutron stars are extremely dense, city-size objects with masses about 1.5 times that of the sun. A teaspoon of material from a neutron star can weigh up to a billion tons, scientists said in a statement. Their extreme gravity can strip material away from a companion star.
That material heats up and emits X-rays as it is pulled into the neutron star, and eventually, that X-rays light overpowers the star's gravity and pushes material away — a point known as the Eddington limit. For the ULX neutron stars, these X-rays are far stronger than their cousins, and scientists aren't sure why. [Related: How Big Are Neutron Stars, Really?]
"In the same way that we can only eat so much food at a time, there are limits to how fast neutron stars can accrete matter," Murray Brightman, lead author of the new study and a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, said in the same statement.
"But ULXs are somehow breaking this limit to give off such incredibly bright X-rays, and we don't know why," Brightman said.
The charged particles circling the magnetic field reveal signatures in a star's spectrum of light known as cyclotron lines, which can provide information about the strength of the stellar magnetic field. But there's a catch. Researchers must know whether the lines are caused by positively charged protons or negatively charged electrons. Currently, they don't have enough information to determine which set of particles are involved.
"If the cyclotron line is from protons, then we would know that these magnetic fields around the neutron star are extremely strong and may in fact be helping to break the Eddington limit," Brightman said. A strong magnetic field could help reduce the pressure from the X-rays that push away the ULX's matter, allowing the star to gobble down more material than a typical neutron star and making it shine so brightly.
If the cyclotron limit is from circling electrons, however, the magnetic-field strength of the ULX would not be especially strong, and the field would play no role in the extreme light pouring from the star.
The researchers plan to acquire more X-ray data on the ULX in the Whirlpool Galaxy and hunt down more cyclotron lines in other ULXs, in hopes of figuring out how neutron stars are overcoming these limits to burn so brilliantly.
"The discovery that these very bright objects, long thought to be black holes with masses up to 1,000 times that of the sun, are powered by much less massive neutron stars, was a huge scientific surprise," said Fiona Harrison, the principal investigator for the NuSTAR mission and a researcher at Caltech. "Now we might actually be getting firm physical clues as to how these small objects can be so mighty."
Astronomers May Have Witnessed A Star Giving Birth To A Black Hole
Astronomers May Have Witnessed A Star Giving Birth To A Black Hole
Written byAshley Hamer
Most dying stars go out with a bang—a supernova, more specifically. But scientists recently observed a star that went out with a whisper, skipping the supernova phase and going straight into a black hole. The discovery not only teaches us more about stars; it could also uncover the mysteries behind some of the universe's most massive black holes.
Star N6946-BH1 before and after it vanished out of sight by imploding to form a black hole.
Scientists at The Ohio State University have, for some time, been watching a galaxy 22 million light-years away. That galaxy, called NGC 6946 and nicknamed the "Fireworks Galaxy," sees a large amount of supernovae that scientists observe via the help of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT).
In 2009, scientists noticed that one star, N6946-BH1, was beginning to weaken. In 2015, it disappeared—no big flash, no epic supernova. The scientists concluded that it had instead become a black hole, something that scientists usually believe can only happen after a supernova. Scientists aptly called this unusual trajectory a "massive fail," and published their results in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"The typical view is that a star can form a black hole only after it goes supernova," said Ohio State astronomy professor and study researcher Christopher Kochanek in the press release. "If a star can fall short of a supernova and still make a black hole, that would help explain why we don't see supernovae from the most massive stars."
The doomed star, named N6946-BH1, was 25 times as massive as our sun. It began to brighten weakly in 2009. But, by 2015, it appeared to have winked out of existence. By a careful process of elimination, based on observations researchers eventually concluded that the star must have become a black hole. This may be the fate for extremely massive stars in the universe.
Scientists still don't know how often stars go through massive fails, but researcher Scott Adams predicts that it occurs in about 10 to 30 percent of massive stars.
The findings could help explain the origins of very massive black holes, since they may be easier to form if no supernova is necessary. That's because the explosion of the supernova ends up blasting out the star's outer layers, leaving behind less mass to create a black hole. If no supernova was involved, more of the star's mass would be available to transform into a more massive black hole.
Watch And Learn: Our Favorite Content About Star Death
The Hynek Scale is a Six-Item System for Classifying UFO Sightings and Alien Contact
The Hynek Scale is a Six-Item System for Classifying UFO Sightings and Alien Contact
Written byJoanie Faletto
Ever see a mob of aliens pop out of a UFO but you just don't quite know how to describe it? Ugh, we know the feeling. For that, and probably at least one other good reason (right?), there is the Hynek Scale. Finally, a way to sort through all of your close calls with E.T.
We Really Want To Believe
All jokes aside, the overwhelming number of UFO sightings are nothing to brush off without some investigation into what's really going on. Enter J. Allen Hynek, astrophysicist, scientific adviser to UFO studies by the U.S. Air Force from 1948 to 1969, and founder of the Center for U.F.O. Studies in 1973.
"I started almost as a complete skeptic because I thought the whole thing was a question of post-war nerves," Hynek admitted about UFOs in a 1977 interview, "but it was a persistence of the phenomenon that refused to dry up and blow away that finally led me to the belief that we had a real phenomenon to deal with."
Phew, Close One
It was in his 1972 book "The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry" that Hynek penned what would become his legacy: his close encounters scale, also known as the Hynek Scale. This six-item list is a system for categorizing reports of UFO sightings and alien encounters. You've heard of Steven Spielberg's 1977 sci-fi flick "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," right? He got it straight from the 1972 text. Hynek even served as scientific advisor on the film, and makes a cameo (keep your eyes peeled for the Colonel Sanders-looking dude). Without further ado, here is the Hynek Scale:
Nocturnal lights. These are wacky lights in the night sky that move unlike planes or planets, most often red, blue, orange, or white in color. This represents the largest group of UFO reports.
Daylight discs. These are oval, metallic flying objects that are visible in the daytime. They've been said to disappear with astounding speed.
Radar-visual cases.These are significant blips on radar screens that coincide with visual reports.
Close Encounters of the First Kind (CE-I). This is when a UFO is within 200 yards, but it doesn't interact with the witness or environment.
Close Encounters of the Second Kind (CE-II). This is when a UFO actually interacts with the environment, whether that be leaving physical evidence on the ground, on animals, or on humans.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE-III). Spielberg alert! This is when occupants of a UFO (humanoid or otherwise) are seen.
The FBI's digital reading room, where any FBI report can be viewed online, is called the Vault.00:00
The FBI's most viewed file details the account of an Air Force officer recovering three flying saucers in New Mexico in 1950.00:44
There are hundreds of reports in the "unexplained" section of the FBI's Vault about UFO and alien sightings that are more popular than the most famous criminal case files.02:03
IF ALIENS ASKED YOU TO BOARD THEIR CRAFT,..WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
IF ALIENS ASKED YOU TO BOARD THEIR CRAFT,..WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
If Aliens Asked You to Board Their Craft,..What Would You Do?
This is a question I ponder many times when thinking about UFO’s and a possible Extraterrestrial Presence on Earth.
What would I do if a Extraterrestrial craft landed in my backyard and the door opened or some kind of entry appeared where it seemed like I was being invited in to the craft?
Here is my thoughts on how my experience may play out! Please tell me what yours may be!
Maybe “they” would even be beckoning me telepathically or even standing by the entrance gesturing for me to come forward into the craft.
So hopefully after my initial shock and disbelief I would be still be thinking rationally and come up with a answer and either move forward and enter or maybe try to ask a few important questions like, “So you’re not going to poke and probe?”,..and “We are coming back right?”
As I run this scenario thru the my thought process, I realize I also should be documenting my experience with photo’s and video! “Where’s my Camera?”, “I’m Excited, Overwhelmed and Delirious in What I should Do!”
Then reality sets in and questions rise up as to why I would be experiencing this?
Why Me?
If a highly advanced race of Aliens made the journey to earth ,…why my backyard?
Surely Stephen Hawking, Seth Shostak (head of SETI), or even Giorgio A. Tsoukalos the “Alien Guy” would be a better choice?
This can’t be Good!
I revert back to instinct and a voice in my head screams load and clear!
“NOT IN MY BACKYARD!”
Humans are the Species on Earth that claims ownership to the Planet and the dirt beneath its feet. Although we share the Planet with millions of other species we have claimed that we are the dominate species and ruler of the Planet,..and its Galaxy. With our technological advances we have claimed the Moon, Mars and more as ours. If we land there,we own it type attitude. Consuming property as our history as shown over and over again with each human empire pushing for more land and more control.
We defend what we own.
As humans we own our backyard and eliminate any intruders we find “unworthy”. We manicure our lawns and eliminate pests, rodents and plants we consider undesirable. We get angry if our space is trespassed by other people, I myself have been frustrated with teenagers who use my backyard as a short cut between streets. Also in our community complaints arise about crop duster noise and low flying planes over “MY BACKYARD”.
Even if we traverse past our own claimed domains we make temporary ownership. We camp in a forests and bring weapons to protect agonist predators!… in their own backyard! We dam rivers, manipulate weather, and continue to defy mother nature and build wherever we want to.
We may decide that parts of the Amazon are needed for our expansion?,..Oh we have done that!,.. or the Moon is ripe for strip mining! The Planet Mars for our new home away from home!
Haman quest is to always to reach past that final frontier and stake the flag indicating ownership.
“Planting the flag” usually means making a claim to something, usually … Throughout history men have “planted the flag” claiming ownership.
Realizing that no self-respecting galactic colonization force can conquer other planets without a proper flag, Oskar Pernefeldt created the International Flag of Planet Earth and showed off how it might look on a spacesuit and planted on extra-terrestrial soil.
So what would I do if an Alien Craft landed in my backyard?
Well, I didn’t go into the backyard at night without some protection!
As the craft approached and attempted landing in my garden I unleashed a a warning shot over its spinning translucent top.
With visible extraterrestrials in the cockpit and as they ignored my warnings and landed on my sweet corn I took action.
I unleashed my Pit bulls on the open door in the craft! They took off as I unloaded the remaining bullets in the clip and although as they took off with my earth enslaved animals and seemed to explode in space due to the carnage I expect on board, I cant help wonder if they came in Peace?
This is just my thoughts and yours could be vastly different!
I hope they are and would love to hear them! (Cause I’m not a good ambassador candidate, obviously)
NSFDe National Science Foundation maakte een schatting van hoe het universum er bij de vorming van de eerste planeten uitzag.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETHet duurt 8 minuten en 20 seconden voor het licht van de zon onze aarde bereikt. Hoe groter de afstand, hoe langer het duurt, wat betekent dat je met een telescoop letterlijk terug in de tijd kunt kijken. En nu hebben astronomen voor het eerst een glimp opgevangen van het eerste licht in ons universum.
Dat ons universum ontstond met de big bang weten we allemaal, maar wist je dat er daarna niet meteen licht was? De eerste 180 miljoen jaar (ongeveer) bestond alles uit een mengsel van waterstof en helium, en was het donker en koud. Pas toen de eerste planeten ontstonden, die een ultraviolet licht uitstootten, viel er iets te zien. Astronomen van de Arizona State University hebben dat licht nu voor het eerst kunnen opvangen met behulp van een radio-antenne.
De antenne in kwestie is niet veel groter dan een koelkast en kostte ‘maar’ 5 miljoen dollar, een peulschil in vergelijking met de peperdure Hubble-telescoop. Twee jaar geleden kon het ding, dat opgesteld staat in een Australische woestijn, een zacht radiosignaal opvangen, waarna de wetenschappers het jarenlang analyseerden. In het resultaat van dat onderzoek, gepubliceerd in het tijdschrift Nature, vertellen ze nu dat het radiosignaal afkomstig is uit de periode van de eerste planeten.
Onze eigen oorsprong
De wetenschappers zijn enorm trots op hun ontdekking, omdat het een periode van ons universum is waar we weinig tot niets van afweten. Sommigen vinden het ontstaan van de sterren belangrijker dan de Big Bang, aangezien wijzelf ook opgebouwd zijn uit ‘sterrenstof’ en we dus letterlijk naar onze eigen oorsprong kijken. En dat is niet het enige opmerkelijke aan deze vondst, want het zou ook de bevestiging van donkere materie kunnen zijn.
Het radiosignaal wees immers duidelijk op het bestaan ultraviolet licht 180 miljoen jaar geleden, maar bevatte daarnaast ook enkele vreemde eigenschappen. Zo konden de onderzoekers afleiden dat de waterstof tussen de eerste planeten een stuk kouder was dan eerst werd aangenomen. “We gingen altijd uit van tien graden boven het absolute nulpunt, maar het bleek maar om vijf graden te gaan.” Voor de leken, dat is -268 graden Celsius.
Een van de theorieën is dat de waterstof tussen de sterren afgekoeld werd door zwarte materie. Die materie is nog steeds een raadsel voor de wetenschappelijke wereld. We weten uit het bestuderen van de zwaartekracht dat 27 procent van het universum eruit bestaat en dat het niet opgebouwd is uit ‘normale’ deeltjes, maar veel verder is nog niemand gekomen. Als de radiogolf het bestaan van die materie kan bevestigen, is dat een enorme stap vooruit. “Als dit nieuws bevestigd kan worden, verdient deze ontdekking een Nobelprijs”, klinkt het. “In de kosmologie is donkere materie het belangrijkste dat er is.”
BELGAONTHESPOTMatthias van Ginneken en de Zwitserse veldgids Raphael Mayoraz bij een plaats waar meerdere micrometeorieten werden gevonden.
WETENSCHAP Twee Belgische wetenschappers hebben op Antarctica zo’n 30.000 tot 50.000 micrometeorieten verzameld. Dat zijn erg kleine deeltjes van een meteoroïde. De oogst overtreft de stoutste verwachtingen, en is belangrijk om ons zonnestelsel beter te begrijpen.
De twee wetenschappers, Matthias Van Ginneken van de ULB en Steven Goderis van de VUB, trokken voor hun onderzoek naar de Belgische Princess Elisabethbasis, en prospecteerden er het Sør Rondane-gebergte op zoek naar meteorieten met een diameter kleiner dan 2 mm.
“We hadden erg veel geluk met het droge, heldere, maar koude weer op de Zuidpool”, zegt Goderis. “Daardoor konden we onafgebroken op het terrein. Soms moesten we door het ijs kappen om bij de gesteenten te komen. In andere gevallen namen we ijsstalen die we smolten en waarin we dan de micrometeorieten konden oogsten. Uiteindelijk verzamelden we veel meer materiaal dan we voorop hadden durven stellen. Op zowat alle plekken die we vooraf hadden aangestipt voor onze bemonstering, waren hoge concentraties micrometeorieten te vinden.”
‘Uiteindelijk verzamelden we veel meer materiaal dan we voorop hadden durven stellen’
VUB-wetenschapper Steven Goderis
Zonnestelsel
Micrometeorieten zijn erg belangrijk voor het begrijpen van ons zonnestelsel. Ze bevatten andere informatie en zijn soms anders samengesteld dan de grotere meteorieten die we kennen uit onze musea. Daardoor kunnen ze leiden tot het ontdekken van nog onbekende asteroïden. Het onderzoek moet inzicht geven in de moederlichamen, waarvan de micrometeorieten afkomstig zijn. Verder hopen de wetenschappers meer duidelijkheid te krijgen over de oorsprong en het transport van kosmische stof in de binnenste delen van het zonnestelsel, en over de fysicochemische veranderingen die plaatsgrijpen bij hun doorgang door de atmosfeer. Jaarlijks komt naar schatting 40.000 ton buitenaards materiaal op onze planeet terecht.
Micrometeorieten zijn erg belangrijk om ons zonnestelsel te begrijpen
“We gaan proberen om de ouderdom van onze micrometeorieten te bepalen aan de hand van zogenaamde cosmogene nucliden”, zegt Goderis. “Een nuclide, een zeldzaam en specifiek type atoom of zijn nucleus, wordt gekarakteriseerd door een welbepaald aantal protonen en neutronen. Wanneer gesteentenmateriaal blootgesteld wordt aan kosmische straling, worden in de loop van soms tienduizenden jaren cosmogene nuclides gevormd. Dat gebeurt als de hoogenergetische straling interageert met de kern van een atoom. Daarbij worden door bepaalde atomen protonen en neutronen afgestoten. Door die zeldzame nuclides te tellen per gewichtseenheid, kan je de duurtijd van blootstelling en zo dus de leeftijd van het gesteente bepalen.”
Collectie
Al sinds 2009 hebben drie Belgisch-Japanse wetenschappelijke expedities meteorieten teruggebracht uit Antarctica. Dat resulteerde in een Antarctische meteorietcollectie van meer dan 1.200 goed bewaarde fragmenten, geconserveerd in het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen, een van de grootste collecties in Europa. Met de laatste expeditie wordt de Belgische collectie micrometeorieten op slag ook een heel pak rijker.
“We gaan nu de 105 kilogram verzameld sediment met micrometeorieten in detail bestuderen en de micrometeorieten stuk per stuk bekijken in onze laboratoria aan de ULB en de VUB”, zegt Goderis. “Het materiaal dat we meebrachten bevat misschien ook wat interplanetair stof, de fijnste fractie extraterrestrisch materiaal, dat misschien van nog andere reservoirs in het zonnestelsel afkomstig is. Verder gaan we onderzoeken hoe het komt dat er dergelijke concentraties aan buitenaards materiaal kunnen ontstaan op Antarctica en welke mechanismen er aan de basis liggen van die accumulatie.”
‘We gaan onderzoeken hoe het komt dat er dergelijke concentraties aan buitenaards materiaal kunnen ontstaan op Antarctica’
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CLOSE ENCOUTER OP DE LEUSDERHEIDE ( VIDEO )
CLOSE ENCOUTER OP DE LEUSDERHEIDE ( VIDEO )
Als wij in Nederland een Roswell zouden hebben, dan is daar maar één plaats die daarvoor in aanmerking komt en dat is de voormalige vliegbasis Soesterberg.
Er zijn meerdere getuigen geweest van spectaculaire UFO waarnemingen in de jaren zeventig en nu is er het verhaal van de dame die aan het paardrijden was enkele kilometers van Soesterberg toen....
Het jaar 1979 was voor UFO liefhebbers bijzonder in ons land. Want toen gebeurde er iets heel spectaculairs op de voormalige vliegbasis Soesterberg.
Maar, eerst gaan we nog even iets verder terug en wel naar het jaar 1977, toen er ook iets gebeurde dat beschreven staat in een eerder artikel:
Misschien wel de belangrijkste UFO-interceptie case in Nederland betreft een poging tot onderschepping door een F-4 op vliegbasis Soesterberg. In augustus 1977 werd een schotelvormig object waargenomen boven de vliegbasis, waarna een F-4 Phantom van het Amerikaanse 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron werd ingezet om de UFO te onderscheppen. Het vliegtuig was uitgerust met een compleet wapenarsenaal, wat erop wijst dat het niet ging om een routinevlucht. De F-4 crashte uiteindelijk in de Noordzee.
Daarna volgt het jaar 1979 en weer een deel uit een eerder artikel:
Op 3 februari 1979 werden door meerdere militairen UFO's boven vliegbasis Soesterberg waargenomen. Dit voorval is uitgegroeid tot de Roswell-case van Nederland. Al vanaf 1964 zijn tientallen meldingen gedaan van objecten die boven de basis zijn gezien. Ook heeft Niburu bij monde van vele getuigen te horen gekregen dat via EMP's bepaalde onderdelen van de basis werden uitgeschakeld die verbonden waren met het nucleaire arsenaal. Rond 1990 heeft de VPRO hier op de radio aandacht aan besteed.
Eerder zond de VPRO, ook via de radio, een reconstructie uit van wat er die dag in februari 1979 gebeurde:
De VPRO, die kort na het incident een tip ontving, besloot verhaal te halen bij de luchtmacht. Dit leidde tot een fascinerende reconstructie waarin maar liefst tien getuigen vertellen over hun waarneming, hun angst en de ridiculisering die volgde wanneer ze erover spraken. Ook de officiële verklaring van de luchtmacht, luchtspiegelingen, wordt in de reconstructie door de wachtcommandant en zijn personeel weggelachen. Op de vraag waarván het dan een weerspiegeling zou zijn grapt een deelnemer: “Van een ufo verderop!” De reconstructie werd op 27 april 1979 uitgezonden in het radioprogramma Expres VPRO en is hieronder te beluisteren.
Dan, rond diezelfde tijd heeft een dame op haar paard een soort Close Encounter, enkele kilometers verwijderd van de vliegbasis.
Op een namiddag in februari 1979 reed Josie Zwinenberg, toen 21, met haar paard vlakbij militair oefenterrein Leusderheide. Het object dat zij hier doodstil boven een bosrand zag hangen zou ze nooit meer van haar netvlies krijgen. Toch gingen er jaren voorbij voordat Josie haar verhaal zou delen.
Ze begint haar verhaal als volgt:
Het was in de namiddag bij daglicht. Rond vier à vijf uur, zo’n twee uur voor zonsondergang, voor de schemer. We zouden de Leusderheide op gaan. Dus bos, veel bomen en dan heb je een haakse bocht waar je het ruiterpad op komt. En dat loopt loodrecht naar de Leusderheide. Dus ik ga de bocht om, het ruiterpad op en daar was het. Pal voor me. Het was er al, het hing al in de lucht.
Later heeft ze een tekening gemaakt van het object wat er ongeveer als volgt uit zag.
In de volgende video vertelt Josie Zwinenberg voor het eerst na al die jaren haar eigen verhaal.
Het verhaal van Josie krijgt nog een bizar vervolg in Ierland en wij raden eenieder aan om dat hier te lezen.
De waarneming speelde in 1991 en wanneer je het verhaal van de getuige leest, wordt duidelijk waarom dat nu pas naar buiten komt.
De getuige is anoniem en vertelt het volgende verhaal:
In de nacht van 17 februari 1991 liep ik de nachtdienstwacht op de militaire basis Soesterberg in Nederland.
Samen met een andere cadet kwam ik om 3.00 uur in de ochtend aan bij de centrale parkeerplaats en zie een grote cirkel in de lucht, recht boven ons. Het had geen bepaalde vorm, maar alleen felle lichten die langzaam tegen de wijzers van de klok indraaiden. De lichtpunten zelf roteerden niet, maar de kleuren (veranderden) op een soort vloeibare manier.
Ik schat dat het object ongeveer 30 tot 50 meter in doorsnee was. Het eerste dat wij beiden dachten, was dat het hier ging om een luchtschip, een Zeppelin, zo eentje als GoodYear heeft met lichtschermen aan de zijkanten.
Dat dit ding heel erg laag hing en heel stil, maakte dit alles echter vreemd, heel erg vreemd.
Na een paar minuten begonnen de lichten sneller rond te draaien en plotseling steeg het object op met een onvoorstelbare snelheid richting westen.
Een paar seconden later voelden we een harde wind die om ons hoofd blies, zoals dat gebeurt met bijvoorbeeld een helikopter.
Als er een manier zou zijn om de snelheid van dit ding te beschrijven dan zou ik dat doen, maar die is er niet. We hadden een onbelemmerd uitzicht van ongeveer 30 kilometer. Dit ding legde die afstand vanuit stilstand af in ongeveer een tiende van een seconde.
Ik ken de luchtvaart en ik heb zelf vliegervaring en daarnaast ben ik erg technisch. Door dit soort acceleraties zou een mens veranderen in een vloeibare stof.
Jarenlang is dit een onbesproken hoofdstuk geweest in mijn leven. Ik wilde niet over dit voorval spreken omdat direct na het incident de andere cadet en ik om onverklaarbare redenen heel erg ziek werden. Dagenlang hadden we hoge koorts en moesten we overgeven. De ziekte was zo erg dat het hele voorval mij getraumatiseerd heeft en ik er jarenlang niet over heb kunnen praten.
Tot zover het verhaal van de getuige.
Het verslag sluit natuurlijk naadloos aan op de eerdere UFO-waarnemingen boven de voormalige vliegbasis Soesterberg. Voor een uitgebreid artikel hierover verwijzen wij naar Ufo wijzer.
Sommigen kunnen zich misschien nog wel de reportage van RTV Utrecht herinneren over de waarnemingen uit 1979.
Een ding lijkt duidelijk en dat is dat er zich heel wat meer afspeelde rondom deze voormalige NAVO basis dan ons ooit verteld zal worden. En wie weet, misschien komen door bovenstaande wel meer getuigen naar voren.
Strange ball of light spotted in the night sky over Sweden
Strange ball of light spotted in the night sky over Sweden
On February 25, 2018 the owner of the Svensson Ranch in Sweden was out to give the horses hay and stayed out to take some photos of the moon and the pretty color of the indoor arena.
When the owner was on the other side of the houses she turned around and saw a ball of light hovering in the night sky.
Then, at some point a sphere can be seen above a ray of natural blue light pillars that is caused by ice crystals reflecting on the sphere that turns completely into a blue sphere.
An interesting footage; pay attention to the time stamps and the explanation of the owner of the ranch.
Are These Mysterious Ancient Maya Artifacts Evidence Of Ancient Alien Contact?
Are These Mysterious Ancient Maya Artifacts Evidence Of Ancient Alien Contact?
Thousands of years ago, the ancient Maya developed into one of the most influential ancient civilizations in Mesoamerica.
Occupying a territory from Mexico to El Salvador, the powerful Maya became one of the dominant forces in the region, creating massive cities, trading routes, and breathtaking temples and pyramids.
The Maya stood out in the American Continent due to their hieroglyphic writing, one of the few fully developed writing systems of the pre-Columbian American continent, as well as for its art, architecture, and systems of mathematics, astronomy, and ecology. They were one of the most developed ancient cultures in America.
The AncientMaya developed in the region that encompasses the southeast of Mexico, corresponding to the states of Yucatan, Campeche, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and the eastern part of Chiapas, as well as in most of Guatemala, Belize, the western part of Honduras and El Salvador.
This region is composed of the northern lowlands that encompass the Yucatanpeninsula, the highlands of the Sierra Madre that extends through the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala to El Salvador, and the southern lowlands in the south.
The Mayan civilization developed sophisticated forms of art using both perishable and durable materials, including wood, jade, obsidian, pottery, carved stone monuments, stuccoes and finely painted murals.
The Mayans produced a great variety of architectural structures and left an extensive architectural legacy, which placed the Mayan civilization among the great pre-industrial civilizations of the world.
Mayan architecture also incorporated glyphic texts and various art forms.
The Mayan masonry architecture is evidence of the existence of artisan specialization in Mayan society, as well as a centralized organization and political means to mobilize a large workforce.
Long story short? The Maya were a civilization unlike any other in America.
And because of their extreme level of advancement, many researchers and ancient astronaut theorists have pondered whether it is possible that the ancient Maya obtained their advanced knowledge in engineering, astronomy, and mathematics from an otherworldly influence?
Mysterious artifacts, evidnece of ancient alien contact?
Over the years, numerous alleged artifacts said to have belonged to the ancient Maya civilization have been excavated in Central America.
More than six years ago, a stunning set of images made the news after a number of researchers claimed to have rediscovered long-lost ancient Maya artifacts depicting what appear to be spaceships, alien figurines, and star-maps.
Because of the nature of the claims, these artifacts were quickly labeled as a hoax, and the fuss behind the discovery vanished into history as one of the many hoaxed objects found around the globe.
Different artifacts have been discovered throughout the years. The first set of artifact (see below) were allegedly discovered in Calakmul, Mexico.
The site is located in the central/southern portion of the Yucatán Peninsula, in southern Mexico and includes the remains of the important Maya city Calakmul, set deep in the tropical forest of the Tierras Bajas.
Here are the alleged items that were supposedly carved by the ancient Maya, and are evidence of ancient alien contact:
The above artifacts, allegedly made by the ancient Maya have been heavily criticized by experts who maintain they are an elaborate hoax.
The first article I read when I started looking for information about these strange articles wasthis one from the Guardian. There is a lot of stuff that seems out of place here. The biggest mistake in the article is that they mention president “Álvaro Colom” and speak about him being Mexico’s president which is a mistake, he, in fact, is a Guatemalan politician who was the President of Guatemala from 2008 to 2012.
From there everything went downhill and the little belief I actually had was gone (you really cannot make a mistake like that, can you?).
The article also seems to mention several statements of high ranking officials from Mexico and Guatemala that discussed these artifacts, yet I have not been able to find transcripts or anything like that online.
I did, in fact, find the images of these artifacts and I must admit they seem impressive. From what I have read about the subject, there is little to none credible information, and the archaeological discovery itself is questionable.
But the above artifacts are not the only ones that have been found so far.
In fact, numerous other similar objects have been discovered throughout the years.
Here are a few:
Countless images of mysterious figurines are available across social networks.
FASCINATING FLOATING CITY SHAPED LIKE A MANTA RAY WOULD BE 100% SELF-SUSTAINING
FASCINATING FLOATING CITY SHAPED LIKE A MANTA RAY WOULD BE 100% SELF-SUSTAINING
French architect Jacques Rougerie has envisioned a giant floating city which bears a striking resemblance to a manta ray. He discusses his love for the ocean in an interview, where he calls himself a “mérien,” a term he coined which translates to “one belonging to the sea.” His dream is for like minded individuals to populate his City of Mériens, to conduct research on the surrounding ocean.
Rougerie describes his love for the sea in an interview with the radio station French Inter: “I feel very, very good underwater. I feel different. Another type of imagination is awakened in me as soon as I am underwater.” It is his hope others who share this awe and reverence will continue to study and protect Earth’s precious seas.
The U.S. government spent millions on a project dubbed the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, which studied UFO phenomena. Many claim they found life outside of our planet.
MARK STEVENSON/STOCKTREK IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES
When Project Blue Book, the infamous U.S. government program to study the possible threat of alien life, was shuttered in 1969, it signaled to most Americans that this danger was all but ludicrous. But in December 2017, The New York Times broke the story that the U.S. government had been secretly continuing the program.
According to unclassified documents, the government quietly spent nearly $22 million over about four years on a project dubbed the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program (AATIP). Stuff They Don't Want You To Know wanted to find out more and invited ufologist Jeremy Corbell in with them to chat on the podcast How the Government Secretly Tracked UFOs — and also talk about what AATIP did and didn't find.
The AATIP began in 2007 and studied UFO phenomena, mainly because of the 2004 Tic Tac Incident. That's when several U.S. Air Force pilots witnessed unidentified flying objects off the coast of California — and documented them on video. These objects were unknown to the pilots, and behaved strangely, as if physics didn't apply — they were flying fast and rotating in unpredictable movements.
It seems that since then, the Pentagon has taken on investigating whether these objects can be identified and, if not, where they came from, and if they're a threat. However, when The New York Times story broke, the official word was that the program ended in 2012. But Luis Elizondo told CNN it's still ongoing — and he would know. Elizondo was the military intelligence official running the program from the Pentagon until he quit in October 2016 in protest that the government wasn't taking the threat of aliens seriously enough.
The project, which received $22 million in funding, wouldn't have even gotten that much if it weren't for retired Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada. He and fellow retired senators Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, and Daniel K. Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, got the program started. Most of the funding went to billionaire business owner Robert Bigelow's company, Bigelow Aerospace, which stored objects and alloys, and solicited research. Bigelow is a well-known believer in aliens. He told "60 Minutes" that he's "absolutely convinced" that not only are aliens real, they're also already living among us.
Bigelow's so convinced, he purchased property in Utah and transformed it into a compound dedicated to studying aliens. And it's not just any ranch — it's Skinwalker Ranch, an infamous place known for bizarre sightings that include everything from tall, slender humanoid forms and mutilated cattle to strange lights in the sky.
This story has everything. But it raises even more questions than it answers. Many UFO enthusiasts think this news is proof of life on other planets; why else would the U.S. government keep studying it? So what do Ben and Matt think? And what about ufologist Jeremy Corbell — what's his take? Do they think we're alone? You'll have to listen to the podcast to find out.
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UFO spotted shooting across the moon in SHOCKING footage
UFO spotted shooting across the moon in SHOCKING footage
GIANT triangular UFOs have been spotted circling the moon which has led alien hunters to believe that our lunar satellite is actually an extraterrestrial base.
UFO spotted shooting across the moon in SHOCKING footage
Conspiracy theorists were sent into a frenzy when “amateur astronomers” spotted what they believe is clear evidence of a UFO gliding across the moons surface.
Conspiracy YouTube channel Secure Team 10 posted a video which shows the shadow of a ‘craft’ flying over the moon.
The UFO itself is not seen but the narrator of the video believes that this is due to it being so close to the moon that one can only see its shadow from Earth.
The narrator of the video says: “You can tell that this is a shadow because you can see the shadow wrapping around the craters.
“You can tell that this is a shadow because you can see the shadow wrapping around the craters."
“This was emailed to me by not only an amateur astronomer, but a guy who was the CEO of a corporate jet fleet in Texas.”
Some believe that this is clear footage that a UFO.
Responding to comments below the footage, YouTube user TUFORC wrote: "People who think it was a bird or bug really don't understand what they are seeing or understand telescope or video camera focal points or depth of field.
"One other thing to note. A satellite traveling in earth orbit passes the entire moon in less than a second of time.
YOUTUBE
The shadow of the 'UFO'
“This UFO was viewed for at least six seconds over a small part of the moon surface.”
Another person believed that this is a sign of the end for humanity, writing: “The end is near, humans deserve it as well. It will let the worlds wildlife flourish as it should. The human race is too destructive to survive.”
However, some were not so convinced by its authenticity.
The Matt 222 wrote: “It doesn't make sense if the shadow is that dark and small the craft needs to be near to the shadow!!(near enough to see the whole craft)”.
Orion added: “It’s a ladybug crawling on the camera lens”.
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02-03-2018
Pilots report intruder ‘UFO’ spotted in broad daylight
Pilots report intruder ‘UFO’ spotted in broad daylight
Allison Yee
It was the bizarre sight that had pilots and air traffic controllers stumped.
Pilots report intruder ‘UFO’ spotted in broad daylight
Flying high above the ground over Crater Lake in Oregon, an unregistered aircraft was causing havoc as baffled pilots radioed in reports of an unidentified object flying outside registered flight plans.
On the ground, it was a similar situation, with radars alerting air traffic controllers to a mystery object in the air.
Pilots and air traffic officials noticed the suspicious flying object in the air last October.
Photo: Getty
Now audio obtained by blog The Drive has revealed an exchange between officials as they struggled to figure out the incident last October.
"You know that target south of the boundary there? The 0027 code moving very fast at 37,000?" a radar operator can be heard saying.
The object wa
s evident on radars, but wasn't responding to any attempts to communicate. Photo: Getty
"Oh, look at that thing,” replies a centre controller. “Huh, um and you don’t have anything on him?"
With the operator replying he didn’t, theSunreports sightings of the object continued for another 30 minutes, and saw another United Airlines flight calling in reports of a ‘large white plane’.
Fighter jets were dispatched to investigate - but the object disappeared.
Photo: Getty
Officials took the sightings seriously, with F-15 fighter jets later taking off from Portland International Airport in a bid to investigate and intercept the object.
However their search was futile as the flying object has mysteriously vanished.
"The fighter scrambled, they went out looking around a little bit but we, you know, we lost anybody having sight of the aircraft,” the Sun reports a FAA Seattle Center Official saying.
Many of us at work have tried to communicate some critically vital information up the management chain of command. But it always seems that either the big boss just never gets the message or the boss does get that information but it has been watered down and made palatable by somebody between you and the big boss.
So to ensure that the boss isn’t made unhappy by bad news, middle-level management and staff do their best to filter, spin and squash troubling information from ever reaching the big boss.
So what does this have to do with UFOs? Everything!
Let’s talk about responsibility.
Congress has authority over financial and budgetary matters, through the enumerated power to collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
You would think that congressional representatives would be concerned about an issue that affects the defense and general welfare of the United States. Especially since Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war via the War Powers Clause.
From April 29 to May 3, 2013, Stephen Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group produced a “Citizen Hearing on Disclosure” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The public hearing was modeled after a congressional hearing that had 42 researchers and military/agency/political witnesses from 10 countries who testified for 30 hours over five days before six former members of Congress regarding UFO events, evidence confirming UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race. The hearing was filmed and webcast.
Paradigm sent DVDs of that hearing to every congressional representative on Capitol Hill. When congressional staffers were polled later for receipt of the DVDs, not a single staffer acknowledged that their office had received the DVDs.
In 2014, Paradigm launched the Congressional Hearing/Political Initiative, which focused on seeking hearings for the scores of military/agency/political witnesses who were ready to testify on Capitol Hill about UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence. Despite Bassett’s valiant lobbying efforts, congressional hearings never came about.
This was a clear example of a civilian group attempting to get the attention of Congress via lobbying. Too bad Paradigm didn’t have the vast financial resources of the National Rifle Association.
On a citizen activist level, this reporter’s own repeated efforts to arrange a meeting with a senior staff member from New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand was a frustrating and wasted effort. For the record, both senators were sent a copy of my book UFO Sightings Desk Reference, which contains eye-opening and pervasive data.
When I asked Schumer’s staff four months later if they had received my letter, they said no and stated that the letter probably got lost in the congressional mailroom. I pointed out that my letter had a 2 ½ pound book stapled to it!
To their credit, Sen. Schumer’s Syracuse staff did request another copy of my letter, and an additional copy of my book, which I personally delivered to them. The staffer told me he’d get it into the hands of the right people in the senator’s D.C. office. In eight months’ time I have yet to receive an acknowledgment of any kind.
Finally, I made a press request for commentary from Sen. Schumer in regard to the December mainstream media coverage of the Pentagon’s, Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. The senator’s media point of contact never returned my call.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s staff began shunning me upon the first mention of the term UFO and has never answered any letters or press queries.
So much for expecting my state’s U.S. senators to do their constitutional duty: providing for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
But maybe it’s not the senators’ fault. Maybe their staffs and advisers seem to be functioning like characters from the Hans Christian Andersen 1837 story “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” as the couriers whofiltered, spun and squashed troubling information from ever reaching the emperor’s ears.
The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country.
There was a Dec. 16, 2017, New York Times article about the Defense Department’s $22 million Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program.
Former military intelligence official Luis Elizondo offered several statements in his Oct. 4, 2017, resignation letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis with regard to that program, such as “the many accounts from the Navy and other services of unusual aerial systems interfering with military weapon platforms and displaying beyond-next-generation capabilities. There remains a vital need to ascertain capability and intent of these phenomena for the benefit of the armed forces and the nation.”
On Feb. 20, I had a thoughtful and informative telephone conversation with Elizondo, who now works for To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science. (The bulk of that interview will appear in a future article.) Elizondo told me that Secretary Mattis had yet to be shown Elizondo’s resignation letter.
I asked Elizondo about what he considered was the most frustrating part of his job? “Oh my goodness,” he replied, “the inability to tell senior leadership what was going on because of the hypersensitive nature and stealth posture in the department.”
Elizondo continued, “It’s important that people know that I served directly with Mattis and, in my opinion, he’s absolutely one of our greatest American treasures and assets. I was with him in Kandahar and I saw him literally save people’s lives. My experience with General Mattis is that he’s a man. Secretary Mattis is a man who wants more information, not less, and to not tell the emperor he has no clothes on, I think, it is a dereliction of duty.
“So my frustration was the resistance by senior leadership not wanting to inform the boss what we were doing because they were afraid it would compromise him in some way politically or worse. They were embarrassed because we didn’t have a solution. Keep in mind that the Department of Defense is an organization that likes to have solutions.
“So when you go to the boss and you tell him, ‘There’s this problem that we don’t know what it is. We don’t know how it works and, even worse, there’s not a damned thing we can do about it,’ that’s not a good position to be in if you are in the military, as you can imagine. As a member of the Secretary of Defense staff, the last thing you want to tell the boss is that we have a problem that we don’t have a solution for.”
In a post-interview follow-up question I asked Elizondo if President Obama’s Defense secretaries, Robert M. Gates, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter, were ever briefed on the existence and nature of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. I received no answer to my question.
In our system of government we constitutionally have the doctrine of civilian control of the military. Article II of the Constitution clearly establishes that the president is the commander-in-chief. Strategic decision-making is constitutionally in the hands of the civilian political leadership, rather than professional military officers.
So this is the frustration expressed by Elizondo, the inability to tell senior leadership what was going on. This suggests that his former Pentagon higher-level management is in clear violation of the Constitution: by not briefing the duly appointed civilian authority, in this case, the Secretary of Defense. Congress has the responsibility to hold hearings and get to the bottom of it all.
I suspect that the memo probably got lost in the congressional mailroom.
If you have a UFO sighting to report, use one of the two national database services: NUFORC.org or MUFON.com. Both services respect confidentiality.
Cheryl Costa is the 2018 recipient of the International UFO Congress, “Researcher of the Year” award.
Breakhead: On The Road
Cheryl’s future speaking engagements include:
May 19: Pine Bush UFO Farm, Pine Bush, N.Y.
June 3, 2 to 4 p.m.: DeWitt Community Library Central Library, 5110 Jamesville Road, DeWitt 13078
As if we needed more proof that we’re living in the strangest of times, Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge, a man who once wrote a (pretty great) song called “Dick Lips,” has proven himself to be a galvanizing force in the realm of extraterrestrial exploration. Sure, we all had a laugh when DeLonge quit the band and started crowdfunding for a spaceship, but then WikiLeaks revealedhe was chatting UFOs with high-ranking political consultant John Podesta and a New York Times report not only confirmed some of DeLonge’s previous ramblings on the subject, but also the legitimacy of some of those involved in his To The Stars Academy.
To listen to DeLonge speak on the subject is, to say the least, maddening. He’s articulate in outlining the aims of his academy, and his stories as to how he first came in contact with the government remain remarkably consistent, but, as so happens in this sprawling interview with Joe Rogan, it isn’t long before DeLonge starts spouting off about Greek culture and the lost city of Atlantis and we’re back to rolling our eyes.
If you’re in need of a primer on the whole situation, as well as a breakdown of the ambitious science-cum-entertainment plan of To The Stars,The Faderhas publisheda pretty exhaustive rundown. You’ll also read about the encounter that confirmed DeLonge’s belief in aliens and, surprise, it happened while he was camping near Area 51.
Probably the most revealing part of the piece, however, is the reaction from the greater UFO community, who aren’t surprised at all that DeLonge has been chosen as the effort’s mouthpiece. “It might seem odd to some people that Tom DeLonge has built up this impressive team of scientists and former government insiders, but it doesn’t surprise me,” says Nick Pope, who used to study UFOs for the British government. “People do get starry-eyed, especially if your whole career has been about secrecy and silence. A rockstar is the absolute antithesis of that, and so it’s appealing.”
The International UFO Congress’ Alejandro Rojas agrees. “[DeLonge is] able to get people to open up and talk with him. This is a cool guy you want to hang with and you want to be buddies with.”
You can even see the team’s starry eyes in their own quotes to The Fader. Luis Elizondo, who ran the government’s secret UFO investigation program that was the subject of the aforementioned Times article, says, “Forgive the cliché, but this is really a rockstar team.”
A man out in the foggy wilderness is being abducted by a U.F.O. with a bright beam of light.
C.J. BURTON/GETTY
People often mistake Kate Dorsch for someone who studies aliens. But Dorsch actually studies something else. A doctoral candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, she’s been researching UFO reports collected by the U.S. government.
The Air Force began compiling these accounts during the early stages of the Cold War as part of a program called Project Blue Book. In 1966, it hired the University of Colorado to further investigate stories of alien “encounters” by ordinary Americans. Project Blue Book ended three years later, and the American Philosophical Society eventually archived part of the project in Philadelphia.
Three years ago, Dorsch, a historian, dug through the archives. She found bags of dirt from where flying saucers purportedly landed and even a piece of foil that someone said fell off a UFO. In the process, she discovered another story—one about the struggle between the UFO “witnesses” and the scientists who didn’t believe them—a struggle that speaks to more recent debates over climate change and fake news.
In the archived accounts, Dorsch says, earnest believers in UFOs had trouble explaining what they saw—mysterious objects, bright lights and odd shapes in the sky. But the scientists involved in the project considered them crackpots and doggedly tried to negate the idea of flying saucers. Dorsch says she was struck by "how hard people work to...dissuade the gullible American public from believing in this.”
But inside those responses, Dorsch also saw scientists trying to figure out how to communicate to laypeople. In the documents, for example, academics offered UFO witnesses better ways to tell their stories: Can you use this chart to tell us how bright the light was? What coin best describes the size of the object?
Meanwhile, the observers urged the scientists to take them seriously. "I saw this thing. I'm a trustworthy person. I'm not a drunk,” Dorsch says many of these narratives indicate about the witnesses. “I'm educated. I'm an amateur astronomer.”
The rift between debunkers and believers has its roots in the evolution of science. For centuries, scientific discovery was about simple observation: taking notes, making predictions—things that anyone could do. By the mid-1900s, science had fractured into subfields, each with its own requirements for expertise. Soon, an individual’s knowledge was no longer an appropriate credential. Instead, people in the field judged one another based on the degrees they earned and the books they wrote.
That shift left people vulnerable to charlatans, people who fake their credentials and promote ideas that scientists consider incorrect. Snake oil is much more palatable when it’s sold by someone whose name is followed with MD. Dorsch points to guests on the TV show Ancient Aliens who call themselves doctors and have a list of published books attached to their names. "There are people who feel like they're not being listened to by bodies in the establishment,” she says, “and they're looking for someone to tell them that what they're feeling is real.”
The division over what constitutes authority, Dorsch says, means people need to pay more attention to where they get their facts. "Who you trust,” she says, “changes the information that you have.”
It also leads people to seize any opportunity to crush opposing viewpoints. Take, for example, minor quibbles among scientists about climate change. Newer, more accurate ways of measuring and modeling temperatures make it look as if the planet has warmed more slowly than scientists expected. That sparked debates among scientists, but it didn’t call into question the consensus about climate change. Yet some who were trying to disprove the consensus took the debate as evidence in their favor. Such a response "is a total corruption of exactly what the scientists were saying for decades," Dorsch says. "Once you set up criteria for what counts as fact, what counts as truth, someone will find a way to manipulate that."
The recent clashes over fake news and climate change denial bear a startling resemblance to the clash on display in the UFO archives. People don’t like authority figures telling them they’re wrong, and they don’t like being ignored. "What is essentially on trial is...the qualifications of expertise," Dorsch says. "It's only a matter of time before someone comes along and says, ‘I hear you.’”
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Local News Station Films Strange Objects over Milwaukee
Local News Station Films Strange Objects over Milwaukee
A still image taken from Fox6 News' video.
Fox6 News out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, captured video of a swarm of strange objects flying over the city early Tuesday morning. The video was shot from one of the news outlet's tower cameras at around 4:43 a.m.
A similar video was also recorded by Fox6 at approximately 5:27 a.m. on Wednesday, February 21st.
Amy DuPont, a correspondent for the news station, was on location when she was asked by producers if she was aware of any odd aerial activity. She reported a large flock of seagulls outside of the Milwaukee County Courthouse about 30 minutes after the video was recorded.
"About 30 minutes later we were sitting in our truck here outside of the Milwaukee County Courthouse and we heard them, birds," DuPont said. "There are just a huge flock of seagulls here this morning."
Light reflecting off of seagulls is sometimes used to explain UFO sightings, since the birds are said to be relatively reflective; something Fox6 is using to explain the unusual aerial phenomenon.
However, this explanation hasn't satisfied local investigators.
"Seagulls they say, but I’m not convinced unless they can explain why the camera is interpreting them like that, and what is illuminating them," said Milwaukee fortean investigator Allison Jornlin.
Illinois Mutual UFO Network State Director Sam Moranto shared similar concerns.
"At night [seagulls] like to catch thermals and go higher than normal, but they are low flying birds," Moranto said. "What gets me is the speed and apparent size. We can reasonably assume that they are flying over the brightly lit area. That's some distance away. These whatever-they-are seem to be clipping along. Very interesting for sure."
So far, no report has been filed with MUFON by any eyewitnesses.
If you witnessed these objects, please contact us here at The Singular Fortean Society on our contact page, or email us at info@singularfortean.com.
Archaeologists exploring the word’s biggest flooded cave in Mexico have discovered ancient human remains at least 9,000 years old and the bones of animals who roamed the earth during the last Ice Age.
A group of divers recently connected two underwater caverns in eastern Mexico to reveal what is believed to be the biggest flooded cave on the planet, a discovery that could help shed new light on the ancient Maya civilization.
The Yucatan peninsula is studded with monumental relics of the Maya people, whose cities drew upon an extensive network of sinkholes linked to subterranean waters known as cenotes.
Researchers say they found 248 cenotes at the 347-kilometer cave system known as Sac Actun, near the beach resort of Tulum. Of the 200 archaeological sites they have discovered there, around 140 are Mayan.
Some cenotes acquired particular religious significance to the Maya, whose descendants continue to inhabit the region.
Apart from human remains, they also found bones of giant sloths, ancient elephants and extinct bears from the Pleistocene period, Mexico’s Culture Ministry said in a statement.
The cave’s discovery has rocked the archaeological world.
“I think it’s overwhelming. Without a doubt it’s the most important underwater archaeological site in the world,” said Guillermo de Anda, researcher at Mexico’s National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH).
De Anda is also director of the Gran Acuifero Maya (GAM), a project dedicated to the study and preservation of the subterranean waters of the Yucatan peninsula.
According to the INAH, water levels rose 100 meters at the end of the Ice Age, flooding the cave system and leading to “ideal conditions for the preservation of the remains of extinct megafauna from the Pleistocene.” The Pleistocene geological epoch, the most recent Ice Age, began 2.6 million years ago and ended around 11,700 years ago.
This is what an ancient, watery Venus might have looked like.
NASA
In his 1954 novel Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov imagined seas filled with life and underwater cities on our neighboring planet. It wasn’t long, however, before we discovered what really lurks beneath Venus’s thick cloud cover. In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States' and Soviet Union's spacecraft found a dense, toxic atmosphere on Venus full of carbon dioxide and clouds of sulfuric acid. On the surface, temperatures were hot enough to melt lead, and the crushing pressure was akin to that found in Earth’s deep oceans.
All of this means that Venus is violently hostile to life. Even so, the planet is so similar to our own celestial body in size, makeup, and location that it’s often referred to as Earth’s twin. And in its distant past, it may have been even more Earthlike—scientists now believe that Venus could have once held oceans and a gentler climate.
“People don’t really fully appreciate how similar these two planets are,” says Suzanne Smrekar, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “We hear so much about Mars, and yeah, currently its surface temperature is like Earth's. But probably for most of its evolution Venus was much more like the Earth.”
Despite this similarity, it’s been nearly 30 years since the United States sent a mission to Venus. Smrekar and her fellow Venus researchers believe it’s high time we returned. Venus, they argue, can shed light on Earth’s history, what conditions a planet needs to become habitable, and whether the distant ones we are discovering beyond our solar system might have them.
“The quest to understand life in the universe involves not just the Earth, but the Earth’s twin,” says Stephen Kane, a planetary astrophysicist at the University of California at Riverside.
A world of difference
Billions of years ago, Venus and Earth formed relatively close together from similar materials.
Earth went on to become a wet, mild world ripe for hosting life. “You really need to have a way to create climate stability for life to get started,” says Michael Way, a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. On Earth, plate tectonics, which cycles carbon in and out of the atmosphere, make that stable climate possible. When volcanoes erupt, they shoot carbon dioxide out from the planet’s interior. This greenhouse gas traps heat, keeping Earth toasty enough to support life. If carbon dioxide were allowed to build up, you’d get a hothouse like Venus. However, the Earth slowly recaptures carbon dioxide when it dissolves in rainwater, flows into the ocean, and is used to build carbonate rocks like limestone on the seafloor. As pieces of Earth’s outer shell shift and grind together, they carry carbon back into the mantle.
In other words, plate tectonics powers Earth’s thermostat. Our planet’s restless crust also recycles other nutrients, like phosphorus, that organisms need to survive. “The surface of the Earth is continually replenished by the plates moving underneath each other, Kane says. “Whereas Venus has essentially a single plate.”
While present-day Venus lacks plate tectonics, it may have behaved more like Earth in its early history. “Earth has been remarkably successful at keeping relatively clement climate conditions for at least the last 3.5 to 4 billion years,” Way says. Because the two planets are similar in so many ways, this suggests that Venus might have had a stable climate and oceans at some point as well, he says.
In fact, there is evidence of past water on Venus. Pioneer Venus, an American mission launched in 1978, measured a form of hydrogen called deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen. On Earth, this isotope is much less common than regular hydrogen. But on Venus, deuterium isn’t quite so rare in comparison to ordinary hydrogen, indicating that a great quantity of the lighter version of the element has vanished. “If you measure a big difference in these numbers it tells you that something has escaped from the planet, basically, and that something is water,” Way says.
Another clue came when Venus Express—an orbiter launched in 2005 by the European Space Agency—measured twice as much hydrogen as oxygen escaping from the planet’s atmosphere. This suggests that the elements had once been joined as water.
"Venus is absolutely fascinating because it’s a world that should be very similar to Earth and yet evolved very, very differently,” says NASA’s Lori Glaze.
Public domain
It’s not clear how much water Venus actually had on its surface; it could have been anywhere from a few yards deep across the entire surface to hundreds of yards or more, Way says. To figure out what ancient Venus might have been like, he and his colleagues used a series of computer models to simulate the planet’s atmosphere. They reported that Venus could have had a shallow ocean and surface temperatures similar to those on present-day Earth for several billion years, up until around 715 million years ago.
Venus rotates more slowly than the Earth, which could have helped make it more habitable. Because the Venusian day is so long, the sun heats parts of its terrain for months at a time. At that point, “Warm air rises rather forcefully and creates a planetary-scale cloud that blocks much of the incoming sunlight,” Way says. “That can provide you a shield basically to help you be close to your parent star without overcooking in essence or boiling off your oceans.” This cloud would unleash heavy rains, although they would be concentrated around the area directly facing the sun.
At some point, though, Venus’s fate diverged from that of Earth’s, and the planet wound up as an “uninhabitable hellscape,” Way and his colleagues wrote last month in a paper published to the arXiv. It’s not clear why this happened, Way says. One possibility is that Venus’s seas began to evaporate because the planet receives more solar energy than Earth. In the upper atmosphere, sunlight would have broken the water vapor into oxygen and hydrogen, which then fled into space. Without water to weaken the crust so it could break up, there could be no plate tectonics as we know it. Venus would have become hotter and hotter as water vapor and carbon dioxide built up in its atmosphere.
“It has undergone this runaway greenhouse and now it’s stuck there,” Kane says. “All the carbon is in its atmosphere, it has nowhere to store it because it has no liquid water oceans.”
Earthlings, take heed
The scorching, poisonous place Venus has become can actually give us a glimpse into our own planet’s history.
When the Magellan mission orbited Venus in the 1990s, it took radar images of the planet’s surface that revealed mountains ranges. These features resemble mountains and plains of cooled lava created here on Earth when pieces of crust were jostled about by the sluggish churning of the mantle beneath them, scientists reported in December at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans. Similar forces might be active on Venus; it’s possible that the planet’s intense heat warms its crust enough that small pieces can slightly detach from the mantle about six to nine miles down. Some of the plains surrounding Venus’s mountains had been deformed, suggesting that blocks of crust could have been moving about pretty recently.
This isn’t full-fledged plate tectonics—but it might be the first step in the process. We have little record of how plate tectonics kicked off billions of years ago on Earth, so the more recent activity on Venus might offer a few clues, Smrekar says.
A map of Venus’s surface based on imagery collected by Magellan, Pioneer Venus, and Venera 13 and 14 .
NASA
Our sister planet can help us understand present-day Earth as well, she says. Back in the 1970s, Venus proved key to our discovery that chlorofluorocarbons—chemicals used in hairspray, air conditioners, and other products—were a threat to the ozone layer. While creating computer models for the atmosphere of Venus, researchers at Harvard and MIT found that chlorine is really good at breaking apart oxygen compounds like ozone. Before long, another group at the University of California, Irvine, had realized that the extra chlorine we were pumping into our atmosphere might be doing the same thing on Earth.
Venus also offers a preview of our future. Over time, stars increase in luminosity. This means that the planets in their orbit will be bathed in more solar energy. For a planet with liquid water and an Earth-like atmosphere, that means a one-way ticket to Venusville. “Once you break a planetary atmosphere…[it's] almost impossible to unbreak,” Kane says. “Venus could be the eventual outcome of all atmospheric evolution.”
In fact, it “seems inevitable” that Earth will eventually follow Venus’s path, he says. “The Earth has a delicate balance at the moment; it won’t last forever.”
Jekyll or Hyde?
We’re getting better and better at discovering planets beyond our own solar system—including ones about the size of Earth. We can’t study the soil or atmospheres on these planets to find out if they might be amenable to life, though. “The planets that we’re studying around other stars are planets that we will never be able to go to, at least not in the next several hundred years,” Kane says. “Venus is very much a warning to us, because if we did not have Venus in our solar system…we may very well be far more cavalier in discovering Earth-sized planets around other stars and just assuming that they’re habitable.”
Instead, we realize that two worlds that look the same from a distance can in fact be the Jekyll and Hyde of rocky planets. “As we discover new planets, the only basis we have for comparison are the planets in our own solar system,” says Lori Glaze, a planetary volcanologist at NASA Goddard. “Being able to differentiate between an exo-Venus and an exo-Earth is going to be really important in how we go forward in our exploration.”
It’s possible that Venus’s proximity to the sun is the main reason why it turned out so differently from Earth. But there could be other, more subtle forces at work too, like Venus’s lack of a strong magnetic field. “We’ll need to take those into account because it could mean that we have evil Venuses hiding amongst the planets we find around other stars,” says Kane. On the other hand, if Venus’s slow rotation rate once helped it sustain habitable conditions, it would make sense to measure how quickly exoplanets rotate as well.
“There’s this great cosmic accident that we have in our solar system: two planets that are so similar in size and adjacent in the solar system yet they are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their habitability,” Smrekar says. “If you really want to understand what makes a planet habitable, really the big question is, why are Venus and Earth so different?”
Planning a visit
Even though Venus is our closest neighbor, there’s a lot we don’t know about it.
The planet’s thick blanket of clouds makes it difficult to observe, although missions like Magellan and Venus Express have taken radar and infrared images of the surface. Those pictures revealed another challenge: The surface of Venus isn’t very heavily cratered, indicating that it hasn’t existed for long enough to get dinged up much. “Over the last billion years and perhaps over a much shorter time even, the surface of Venus has been completely reworked,” Smrekar says. Perhaps because the planet lacks plate tectonics, heat periodically builds up underneath the crust until the surface is melted. Because of this, much of the evidence for what Venus’s surface was like in its ancient past has disappeared.
Then there’s the fact that Venus’s extreme conditions destroy any lander that visits within a matter of hours. “It’s a very tough place to send missions; it’s expensive and it’s risky,” Way says. “Mars is much easier to deal with."
This means that funding is harder to secure for Venus than for the Red Planet. “Success begets success,” Smrekar says. “If you find an exciting discovery on Mars you want to follow up on that, and it’s been so long that we’ve had a mission to Venus that it’s hard to get over that hurdle.”
Still, Glaze says, “There’s getting to be quite a groundswell of support for Venus exploration.” Akatsuki, an orbiter launched by JAXA, Japan’s space agency, is currently gathering information about Venus’s climate. And last year, NASA scientists proposed two missions that would have sent probes directly into the planet’s atmosphere. The agency did not select either to advance in its New Frontiers program, but Smrekar, Glaze, and their colleagues are undeterred.
Smrekar would have led the Venus Origins Explorer (VOX) mission to investigate how present-day Venus behaves. It would have used an orbiter to map the planet’s surface and a probe to sample gases in its atmosphere. One of the questions Smrekar and her colleagues would have examined is whether Venus’s craters have been buried in lava flows, which would be a sign of recent geologic activity. They’d have also looked for chemical signatures of active volcanism, such as a thin coating of new minerals formed when lava flows are exposed to the atmosphere.
Another mission headed by Glaze—called Venus In situ Composition Investigations(VICI)—was awarded funding to hone its technology for future competitions. It would have sent two landers to visit highland plateaus that are older than the rest of Venus’s surface. These features might be similar to Earth’s continents, which are built from different kinds rock than its oceanic crust. VICI would have fired a laser into these rocks to vaporize a tiny bit of material, then measured the minerals present in both the plasma it had created and in un-vaporized rock. If Venus’s plateaus have a different composition than the rest of the surface, it could mean that water was involved in forming them.
A highland plateau on Venus.
NASA
During its sojourn, the spacecraft would also have measured gases like krypton and xenon. “Once they’re put into the atmosphere when a planet is forming it’s very hard to change them or remove them,” Glaze says. “They kind of remain there like little atmospheric fossils to tell us about what went into the original makeup of Venus’s atmosphere.”
She and her colleagues have built a full-scale prototype lander and tested its landing abilities here on Earth. The vessel is about 14 feet across and has a squat shape stabilizers that resemble spider legs to make it harder to tip over.
Glaze and her team are unfazed by Venus’s fearsome conditions. “We send things down to far deeper in the ocean [to] much, much greater pressures than we’re talking about on the surface of Venus,” she says. And most of the mission’s key measurements could be taken in under two hours—so by the time Venus’s scorching heat melts the lander’s electronics, they will likely have done their duty.
“Venus is hard to explore, sure, but it’s not like it hasn’t been done before 40 years ago,” Smrekar says. We haven’t sent a probe down into Venus’s poisonous skies since last century’s Venera, Vega, and Pioneer Venus missions. To know what to expect on the exoplanets are discovering far away, however, we’ll need to take another trip next door. “It’s incredibly important that we get back to Venus,” Glaze says.
Researchers were surprised by how much water vapor they found in a ‘hot Jupiter’ — three times more than on Saturn.
Credit: NASA, ESA.
Although NASA has already confirmed thousands of exoplanets — planets outsides our solar system — what’s perhaps most staggering is their sheer diversity. Take, for instance, WASP-39b, an exoplanet located about 700 light-years away with about the mass of Saturn but which could not be any more different. By studying it in great detail, astronomers might not only learn how it formed but how planets in our own solar system’s backyard came to be as well.
A water-rich planet on fire
With the help of NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers were able to peer inside WASP-39b’s puffy atmosphere right to its very core. By filtering the incoming light partly absorbed by the far-away planet into individual colors, scientists could dissect the composition of its atmosphere.
“This spectrum is thus far the most beautiful example we have of what a clear exoplanet atmosphere looks like,” said lead investigator Hannah Wakeford of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom.
This is how they learned that WASP-39b contains three times more water vapor than Saturn does. This was exciting to learn and totally atypical for a “hot Jupiter” — a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter but whose close proximity to the parent star results in high surface-atmosphere temperatures.
WASP-39b takes only four days to come full circle around its parent star. It’s about 20 times closer to its parent star than Earth is to the sun. It’s also tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its star, like the moon.
Being this close to its star, the planet’s day-side temperature hovers at a scorching 1,430 degrees Fahrenheit (776.7 degrees Celsius). And because the exoplanet’s atmosphere is circulated by powerful winds, the night-side of the planet is also just about as hot. Unlike Saturn, WASP-39b doesn’t have any rings. What’s more, it’s atmosphere is free of high-altitude clouds, which allowed Wakeford and colleagues to easily peer down to its depths.
“WASP-39b shows exoplanets can have much different compositions than those of our solar system,” said co-author David Sing of the University of Exeter in Devon, United Kingdom, in a statement. “Hopefully this diversity we see in exoplanets will give us clues in figuring out all the different ways a planet can form and evolve.”
Due to its high water content and hot proximity to its parent star, scientists are convinced WASP-39b must have formed very differently from Saturn. Most likely, it was bombarded by many icy bodies during its early history and, quite possibly, obliterated other planetary objects in its migratory path.
WASP-39b is truly a unique world, the likes of which we’ve yet to encounter. Scientists hope to learn even more about it once the much anticipated James Webb Space Telescopelaunches in 2019. The powerful instruments on board the space telescope will allow astronomers to study exoplanets in much greater detail and which are much farther away than currently possible.
“By calculating the amount of carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere, we can learn even more about where and how this planet formed,” said Wakeford.
Tardigrades are the most indestructible known complex organism on Earth, and perhaps the cutest of all microorganisms. Although they look like tiny space-bears, they can survive without water for 10 years, in extreme pressures and temperatures, and even in space. Forget cockroaches — tardigrades will outlive us all. Now, researchers from the Jagiellionian University in Poland have identified a new species in Japan. With this information, they were able to more precisely classify tardigrades within this taxonomic group based on their egg appearance.
The half-a-millimeter long critters are more diverse than you would think. There are about 1,200 known species, with about 20 new ones discovered each year.
The researchers sampled moss in a car park in Japan and examined it for tardigrades. From the samples, they isolated 10 individuals and started raising them in the lab.
“Tardigrades are very difficult to maintain in the lab, often because we do not know what to feed them, so M. shonaicus was a rare case where we can maintain the culture, where I succeeded to feed them algae as food. We later found out that they can also feed on rotifers. Many tardigrades are parthenogenetic, where only females exist and all offsprings are produced without mating. But Macrobiotus species, such as [the new species] M. shonaicus, often have two sexes, and require mating,” said co-author of the study Dr. Kazuharu Arakawa from Keio University, Japan.
They were luckily able to successfully breed the tardigrades in the lab and it was actually their eggs that made it clear that they are a new species. The eggs have a solid surface with flexible filaments attached. The individuals and the eggs were examined under phase contrast light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy for a closer look. The DNA was also sequenced for four molecular markers to confirm that this is a brand new species.
The surface of the tardigrade’s egg.
Image credits: Stec et al (2018).
It turns out that the larger taxonomic group to which these species belong—the Macrobiotus hufelandi complex— can be further split up into two clades (groups with shared characteristics): one group with filaments on the eggs and ones that have eggs that look like mushrooms or inverted goblets. This new species is placed in the same clade as species from Kenya (Macrobiotus paulinae), Ecuador (Macrobiotus polypiformis), Scotland (Macrobiotus scoticus), and Argentina (Macrobiotus kristenseni). It is the only known member of this species complex in Japan.
The new species of tardigrade–a rare video of a tardigrade defecating. Video credits: Kazuharu Arakawa/YouTube.
It may seem a bit odd that the tardigrades in Japan are most closely related to ones of South America, Africa, and Europe, but these little creatures are excellent at dispersing.
“Terrestrial tardigrades can enter an ametabolic state called anhydrobiosis as the surrounding environment dries, and the animals stay dormant until they are rehydrated by, for example, rain. The microscopic dried tardigrades are blown like specks of dust in the wind, so tardigrades can travel widely in this form. Some species are found worldwide, probably because they join the world’s ‘aeroplankton’ and establish wherever they land,” explained co-author of the study Dr. Kazuharu Arakawa from Keio University, Japan.
The new species is called Macrobiotus shonaicus and brings the number of tardigrade species in Japan up to 168. It isn’t not known for sure, but hypothesized that they have a wider distribution around the Shonai area in Japan after which they are named. There are likely to be even more species to be discovered, as researchers only searched in a car park and there are sure to be other locations with other new species.
HOW HUMANS MIGHT OUTLIVE EARTH, THE SUN…AND EVEN THE UNIVERSE
HOW HUMANS MIGHT OUTLIVE EARTH, THE SUN…AND EVEN THE UNIVERSE
Nuclear war. Runaway climate change. A global pandemic. Today our world faces all manner of existential threats. But scary possibilities like these are nothing compared to what astronomers say lies in store for Earth. Our planet’s ultimate destiny is to be baked, blasted, and eventually disintegrated.
There’s nothing we can do to prevent this cataclysm. Yet according to scientists who study the far future, including Yale University astronomer Gregory Laughlin, the prospect for life is, oddly, rather bright. Given technological advances and the continuing evolution of our species, humans should be able to survive — in some form — long after Earth has ceased to exist.
But our distant descendants are going to have to do some planet-hopping.
THE MULTIPLANET ERA The first major cosmic crisis will strike in about 1.5 billion years. At that point, according to projections by environmental scientist Andrew J. Rushby at the University of East Anglia in England, the brightening sun will set off what might be termed “super-global” warming. Earth will be heated until the oceans boil.
By then, though, will we care? We already have the technology to establish bases on the moon and Mars. So a billion and a half years from now, we’ll likely have colonized the whole solar system — and perhaps other star systems in our Milky Way galaxy.
As the sun grows hotter, other planets will become more appealing. Just as Earth becomes too toasty to sustain life, Mars will reach a temperature that makes it habitable. Cornell University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger has run models showing that the Red Planet could then stay pleasant for another 5 billion years.
About 7.5 billion years from now, the sun will exhaust its hydrogen fuel and switch to helium. That will cause it to balloon into an enormous red giant. Mars as well as Earth will be fried. On the other hand, the once icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn will have become tropical water worlds — prime real estate for human colonies. We could live there for a few hundred million years.
Jupiter’s moon Io is dotted with volcanoes heated by gravitational friction.
NASA/JPL/University Of Arizona
About 8 billion years from now, the flaring sun will make conditions intolerably hot all the way out past Pluto. “The exact dates depend on how much mass you estimate the sun will lose and how much planets will move,” Kaltenegger says. But the message is clear: Life will be impossible in our solar system.
THE STAR-HOPPING ERA Fortunately, Laughlin points out, there are 200 billion other stars in the Milky Way, most with planets of their own. Perhaps our descendants will have mastered near-light-speed travel. Even with current technology, however, interstellar travel is conceivable on the kind of timescales we’re talking about.
The fastest spacecraft built to date, Voyager 1, is racing away from the sun at 38,027 miles per hour. At that speed, it would take 70,000 years to reach the nearest star. But future humans might build interstellar arks, giant ships on which generations of travelers would live and die before delivering colonists to a new destination. Such star-hopping colonists could spread across our entire galaxy before Earth overheats, even assuming no advances in rocketry.
At first, those voyagers might choose to set sail for planets around midsize, yellow stars similar to our own. That will take care of us for quite a while, since sunlike stars last 12 billion years before they fizzle. As one star ages and dies, we can move on to the next. We’ve got time.
Fifty billion to 100 billion years from now, though, all of the raw material for new stars will be used up. The last generation of sunlike stars will burn out, and humans will need a new kind of place to live.
It turns out that we have better options than yellow stars like our sun. The Milky Way is dotted with red dwarfs, cooler and dimmer than our sun but built to last. “For the next 10 trillion years, the red dwarfs are just coming into their own,” Laughlin says.
And so planets around red dwarf stars may be our homes until about 15 trillion years from now, when they too will expire.
THE GRAVITATIONAL ERA Red dwarfs will be the last generation of stars. Once they die, the universe will go dark — literally. Even so, Laughlin doesn’t see this as the end of the line for life. Instead, we will enter what he calls “the gravitational era.”
Illustration depicting the end of life on Earth, after the Sun turns into a red giant.
Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo
In this dark future, we might build enormous space power plants around black holes, lowering masses toward them to harvest their gravitational pull “like the weights pulling down in a grandfather’s clock,” says Princeton physicist J. Richard Gott. Or we might tap the internal heat of planets to generate energy: The gravitational interaction between celestial bodies creates friction, which can keep planets hot inside even without any starshine.
Don’t picture cave dwellers huddling around geothermal heaters. Trillions of years of evolution will have long since transformed us, Laughlin says. Perhaps we will have merged with our computers. Perhaps we won’t even have a physical form. The only thing our descendants will definitely have in common with us is the essential spark of life: not flesh and blood necessarily but information.
“That’s the most important lesson from thinking about the far future universe,” Laughlin says. “We’re being naïve when we think of life only in terms of Earthlike planets and carbon-based life.”
Information-based life can keep going almost forever. The gravitational era that begins around 15 trillion years from now could continue for quintillion years and beyond, Laughlin estimates. A quintillion is a 1 followed by 18 zeroes. It is trillion times as long as the entire history of our hominid line on Earth.
WILL THE UNIVERSE DIE BEFORE WE DO? Still, even this near-eternity is not the same as eternity. At some point, life runs into the physical limits of matter itself.
Physics theories suggest that sometime between 10^34 (1 decillion) and 10^64 (1 vigintillion) years from now, the protons found in the nuclei of all atoms will decay. That means black holes will be the only organized form of matter in the universe. Future humanity can’t have any physical form at this point.
At 10^100 years — 10 duotrigintillion years A.D. — even black holes will evaporate. There will be no energy or structures of any kind — just a cold, eternal mist of farflung particles. This really is the end point for life.
Or maybe not. Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, one of the founders of modern cosmological theory, is exploring a model in which the universe goes through endless cycles of creation. His latest version, developed with Anna Ijjas of Columbia University, suggests that the universe could experience a new Big Bang well before the final black hole apocalypse.
If it does come, a new Big Bang would wipe away all traces of this universe — unless we can find a way to leapfrog into the next cosmic cycle. Current physics offers no guidance here.
Then again, we have quite a while to ponder the problem.
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Do you see what I see? Researchers harness brain waves to reconstruct images of what we perceive
Do you see what I see? Researchers harness brain waves to reconstruct images of what we perceive
Don Campbell
A new technique developed by neuroscientists at U of T Scarborough can, for the first time, reconstruct images of what people perceive based on their brain activity gathered by EEG.
The technique developed by Dan Nemrodov, a postdoctoral fellow in Assistant Professor Adrian Nestor’s lab at U of T Scarborough, is able to digitally reconstruct images seen by test subjects based on electroencephalography (EEG) data.
“When we see something, our brain creates a mental percept, which is essentially a mental impression of that thing. We were able to capture this percept using EEG to get a direct illustration of what’s happening in the brain during this process,” says Nemrodov.
For the study, test subjects hooked up to EEG equipment were shown images of faces. Their brain activity was recorded and then used to digitally recreate the image in the subject’s mind using a technique based on machine learning algorithms.
It’s not the first time researchers have been able to reconstruct images based on visual stimuli using neuroimaging techniques. The current method was pioneered by Nestor who successfully reconstructed facial images from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in the past, but this is the first time EEG has been used.
And while techniques like fMRI – which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow – can grab finer details of what’s going on in specific areas of the brain, EEG has greater practical potential given that it’s more common, portable, and inexpensive by comparison. EEG also has greater temporal resolution, meaning it can measure with detail how a percept develops in time right down to milliseconds, explains Nemrodov.
“fMRI captures activity at the time scale of seconds, but EEG captures activity at the millisecond scale. So we can see with very fine detail how the percept of a face develops in our brain using EEG,” he says. In fact, the researchers were able to estimate that it takes our brain about 170 milliseconds (0.17 seconds) to form a good representation of a face we see.
This study provides validation that EEG has potential for this type of image reconstruction notes Nemrodov, something many researchers doubted was possible given its apparent limitations. Using EEG data for image reconstruction has great theoretical and practical potential from a neurotechnological standpoint, especially since it’s relatively inexpensive and portable.
In terms of next steps, work is currently underway in Nestor’s lab to test how image reconstruction based on EEG data could be done using memory and applied to a wider range of objects beyond faces. But it could eventually have wide-ranging clinical applications as well.
“It could provide a means of communication for people who are unable to verbally communicate. Not only could it produce a neural-based reconstruction of what a person is perceiving, but also of what they remember and imagine, of what they want to express,” says Nestor.
“It could also have forensic uses for law enforcement in gathering eyewitness information on potential suspects rather than relying on verbal descriptions provided to a sketch artist.”
The research, which is published in the journal eNeuro, was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and by a Connaught New Researcher Award.
“What’s really exciting is that we’re not reconstructing squares and triangles but actual images of a person’s face, and that involves a lot of fine-grained visual detail,” adds Nestor.
“The fact we can reconstruct what someone experiences visually based on their brain activity opens up a lot of possibilities. It unveils the subjective content of our mind and it provides a way to access, explore and share the content of our perception, memory and imagination.”
For as long as we have looked up at the stars and wondered about what lies beyond that vast, black void between us there has been the yearning to set out and explore the reaches of our planet, solar system, and beyond. We as a species have spent vast quantities of money and time towards this end, and yet at this moment we are confined to a relatively small region around our own planet. Yet throughout the years there have been those who have claimed to have actually managed what we desire, and have reportedly managed to travel between planets. Whether it be by space ship, teleportation, or other mysterious means, such bizarre reports claim that free travel amongst the cosmos is not only possible, but that it has already happened. Here are some of the weirder of these.
Perhaps the most common way that people have claimed to have been whisked off around the solar system is the old-fashioned way; aboard some sort of alien spacecraft. One early account of this type was the deeply odd story of a Dana Howard, who in 1936 allegedly made contact with a towering, 8-foot tall, golden haired woman from Venus who called herself Diane. Howard claims that the Venusian took her aboard a spaceship, described as being gem-studded and translucent, and she was flown off to the distant Venus. There she found inhabitants of ethereal physical beauty, who manipulated life essences to heal themselves and had teleportation technology. Howard would even claim to have married a Venusian and to have had children living there. She went on to describe Venus and its people in great detail over the years in numerous books, including My Flight to Venus (1954), Diane: She Came From Venus (1956), Over the Threshold (1957), and Vesta, the Earthborn Venusian (1959), all of which were purportedly helped along by the occasional visits from the mysterious Diane.
Another apparent traveler to Venus was Howard Menger, who in the 1950s claimed to have had frequent contact with extraterrestrials from when he was a child, and to have made several trips out into the solar system aboard UFOs over the years. He reportedly went to Venus, with its groves of huge redwood-like trees, as well as to the Moon, which apparently had advanced domes and hover trains, and Saturn, where he would claim he had originally been born as a man named Sol du Naro, who had been romantically involved with a woman from Venus. According to Menger, while on Saturn he had learned that he had died and then had his consciousness beamed into 1-year-old Howard Menger, after which he had grown up as an Earthling. Menger wrote several books about his completely bonkers tales, and made quite a splash in UFOlogy at the time. Making it all even weirder is that he would later claim that none of it had happened at all, and that it was all an illusion implanted into his mind during CIA mind control experiments. Again, whether any of it is real or not, it sure is a wild ride.
Venus
Even more well-known is the tale of Polish immigrant George Adamski, who in 1952 apparently made contact with a Nordic-looking Venusian named Orthon in the Mojave Desert. Adamski would then allegedly make numerous trips to both Venus and the Moon aboard a giant bell-shaped spacecraft. The people of Venus were said to have blonde hair, blue eyes, and to be very beautiful, and the moon was described as having forests, cities, and mountains, as well as lights that glittered in the air like “millions of fireflies.” Although Adamski’s stories are mostly accused of being cheap knock-offs of pulp science fiction stories, he has nevertheless gone on to become one of the more well-known UFO contactees.
Such claims of strange travels around the solar system were not done aboard any sort of space craft, but rather through supposed mental powers, psychic projection, or other mystical means. One of the earliest and weirdest of such reports is the case of the Swedish philosopher, inventor, scientist, and mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg, who claimed that in 1774 he had had a potent spiritual awakening. During this time, he said he gained the power to open his mind to speak with angels or demons, and to make psychic journeys, an ability which he used to travel across Heaven, Hell, and to other parts of the solar system, not through the power of any technology, but through the power of God.
Swedenborg claimed that he had been guided along on this journey by God and angels, and that he saw many wondrous things in other parts of our universe. Among his many detailed accounts, some of the more interesting are what he claimed to have seen in our solar system. He said that he had visited Mars, the Moon, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus, and that each of these places had their own unique civilizations. The Martians were described as being totally without body hair and wearing tree bark for clothing. They apparently lived in a peaceful Utopian society where there was no crime or war. On Venus there were two races of people, a benevolent, peaceful tribe, and another dedicated to violence, war, and thievery. Saturn had its humble people who lived simple lives and buried their dead by covering the bodies with leaves, and the Moon had a race of stout dwarves with booming voices. The people of Mercury were said to wear tight-fitting clothing and to be stern and serious deep thinkers and philosophers, while the population of Jupiter were jovial jokesters and liked to walk about on their hands.
All of these things were explained in meticulous detail in Swedenborg’s writings of his experiences, and although it seems pretty obvious now that there are no such beings as far as we know on any of these planets, at the time it was eaten up by those who followed him and it captured the imagination. He would spend the rest of his life trying to fulfill what he saw as his mission from God to reform Christianity, and he would publish a total of 18 tomes to this effect, the most well-known being his book The Heavenly Doctrine. Did he see any of this at all, perhaps existing in an alternate dimension or reality, or is this all the ramblings of a delusional mind?
In the late 19th century we have the account of the Denton family of England, who were claimed to have the power of psychometry, which means they could basically hold or touch an object and divine facts about it. In the case of William Denton and his family, they could see past events in vivid detail simply from touching historical objects or fossils, and some of them even claimed to have used this power to project themselves to other parts of the solar system. Denton’s son claimed that he had visited Venus and seen numerous strange and wondrous animals, as well as massive trees shaped like mushrooms and water that was “heavy but not wet.” Other members of the family and Denton himself supposedly visited Mars, which had yellow-haired people with four fingers who possessed fantastical flying machines, as well as Jupiter, whose inhabitants apparently had large blue eyes, long flowing blonde hair, and the ability to float through the air at will. Although the Dentons could have very well been attention seeking cranks, it is all very outlandish and entertaining nevertheless.
In the early 1900s there was also the purported 1906 psychic journey of a Sackville G. Leyson, who happened to be the president of the Society for Psychical Research at the time. Through astral projection, Leyson said he had managed to travel to Mars, of which he gave a quite detailed description. According to Leyson, the landscape was perpetually shrouded in red clouds and mist, and there was an odd substance like snow that often fell, but which was not cold and made the ground soft. He said that the planet was populated by two different races of beings with vastly different physical appearances. One was a race of hulking giants covered in hair, who towered over him and had a single eye in the middle of their foreheads, elephant-like ears, the nose of a lion, and who lived in rock huts aboveground. There was also claimed to be a smaller race of dwarves, who only came up to Leyson’s knees. These diminutive creatures supposedly live in underground lairs, had webbed hands and feet, a fish-like face with no nose, bulbous eyes on the sides of their heads, and the ability to scale sheer walls like an insect. It is widely believed that this report was likely a piece of creative journalism, but it is certainly strange enough to warrant mention.
In more modern times we have far-out tale of Ingo Swann, who was allegedly a psychic with the power of remote viewing, which basically entails being able to witness things happening in different locations far away from the person’s actual physical body. In this case it was far away indeed, because Swann would claim that in a remote viewing experiment along with fellow psychic Harold Sherman they had managed to project all the way to Mercury and Jupiter to make observations of these places before the U.S. had even launched its Mariner 10 and Pioneer 10 space probes to explore these regions of the cosmos. While at Mercury, Swann claimed that he had discovered the planet had a thin atmosphere, a magnetic field, and solar winds, and that its sky was painted with constantly shifting lights akin to the Aurora Borealis.
He also claimed that Mercury had a primitive form of plant life like a sort of lichen, which covered the rocks on the surface. Shockingly, when the Mariner 10 did a flyby of the planet 3 weeks later, it found that indeed Mercury was very much as Swann had described it, although the probe was not close enough to be able to verify the presence of lichen on the surface. It had previously thought that Mercury had no magnetic poles or any atmosphere at all, but Swann had apparently seen this first, and the Mariner 10 findings backed this claim up somewhat.
Concerning Jupiter, Swann described it as a frigid place with a noxious, poisonous atmosphere possessing a myriad of colors like a “giant fireworks display.” He also said that he had seen vast, raging tornadoes on the surface, as well as ferocious winds far stronger than any on Earth, and he claimed the planet also had strong magnetic forces and a 30,000-foot-high mountain range. Eight months later the Pioneer 10 passed Jupiter and saw that many of these predictions were all strikingly true. It was impressive enough that former American astronaut Edgar Mitchell was reported as saying:
He described things and gave details that were not known to scientists before the Mariner 10 and Pioneer 10 satellites flew by and got the information. These are things that Mr. Swann couldn’t have guessed or read about. His impressions of Mercury and Jupiter cannot be dismissed.
Pioneer 10
Another who praised Swann’s findings was former scientific consultant to the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who said “His impressions of Jupiter, along with his experience with Mercury, most certainly point the way to more experimentation.” It seems all very impressive, but it has over the years become apparent that the story was played up to be a lot more amazing than the actual facts. One of the problems is that only the things that matched up with what was found by the space probes were apparently reported on, when in fact there were many other details that were flat-out wrong and just not mentioned. Indeed, renowned science fiction author Isaac Asimov found that half of Swann’s observations were wrong, and that the other half could have been lucky guesses based on information already available on planets in science books of the time. Even more damning still was an assessment made by famous astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, Carl Sagan, who at one point said after looking through the whole case:
Recently, two courageous American mystics made an “astral projection” trip to Jupiter, describing the nature of the planet prior to the arrival of the Pioneer 10. I was asked to examine the accuracy of their account. If their reports had been submitted in my elementary astronomy course, they would have received grades of “D.” These reports were not better than what can be extracted from the worst popularizations of planetary astronomy; they were filled with the most obvious misunderstandings both about Jupiter and Pioneer 10. There is no evidence that any mystic has done better in guessing the nature of the planets than he could do without his mystical powers but with the ability to read the better elementary astronomy books.
Ouch. It appears that the very few things the two remote viewers had happened to stumble upon as correct were played up in news reports and a legend was born. It is important to note that in later years Swann did not stop making claims of the weird. In the 1970s he began trying to establish psychic connections with plants, and through this he claimed that he had learned of an impending ecological disaster through mental images projected into his mind by the plants. He wrote of these efforts and other various psychic pursuits in his 1975 book To Kiss Earth Good-Bye. Considering the time-frames involved coinciding with heavy drug culture and the damning skepticism against him, whether any of this planetary travel was achieved through the use of mind powers or the tripping of balls is left open to speculation and interpretation.
In more recent reports we have yet another Mars story and those bases. In 2014, a man only known as Captain Kaye came forward to claim that he was a whistleblower for a military base on Mars. Kaye said that he had spent 17 years on the Red Planet in a program called “The Mars Defense Force,” which had the purpose of protecting the solar system from invading alien races, and which has a colony on the planet called Aries Prime. Eyebrows might be raised even more than they are when hearing that Kaye explains that Mars has a completely breathable atmosphere and a balmy, pleasant climate. According to Kaye, military personnel at the base were ordered to retrieve an alien artifact at a cave on Mars, and this resulted in a catastrophic battle that would see around 1,000 soldiers lose their lives. It has since been determined that Kaye’s real name is Randy Cramer, and that he is a vocal advocate of the idea that the U.S. faked the moon landings in order to cover up the work being done on Mars, so make of that what you will.
These are truly outlandish claims to be sure, seemingly ripped straight from a science fiction story, and perhaps they are just that: science fiction. After all, we have no evidence at all of any of this other than these, let’s be honest, rather implausible claims. However, some of these have gone on to be discussed and debated, and they do go to show that we will probably always have stories like these of people supposedly breaking out of the confines of our planet to reach out towards the stars. Whether real or not, such reports serve to capture the imagination, and illustrate our fascination with the universe beyond what we know
NASA's gloednieuwe Marslander arriveert op lanceerbasis
NASA's gloednieuwe Marslander arriveert op lanceerbasis
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Nog een paar maanden en dan vliegt de lander – die letterlijk ín Mars gaat kijken – de ruimte in.
De afgelopen jaren is er hard aan de Marslander geknutseld in Denver. Maar nadat onderzoekers onlangs de laatste hand aan de Marslander legden, was het tijd voor een tripje naar de lanceerbasis in Californië. Met een vliegtuig is de lander deze week overgebracht naar de Vandenberg Air Force Base, waar deze op zijn vroegst op 5 mei het luchtruim zal kiezen.
UITGESTELD
Eigenlijk had Mars InSight al in 2016 gelanceerd moeten worden, maar problemen met één van de belangrijkste instrumenten aan boord van de lander, hielden deze op aarde.
Testen De komende maanden wordt de lander op de lanceerbasis klaargemaakt voor lancering. Zo zal de komende weken bijvoorbeeld gekeken worden of deze de vliegreis goed heeft doorstaan. Daarna zal de software een update krijgen en alle hardware – waaronder ook de wetenschappelijke instrumenten aan boord van de lander – getest worden. En dan moet er nog iets belangrijks gebeuren, zo vertelt projectmanager Tom Hoffman. “Eén van de belangrijkste activiteiten voor de lancering is het voltanken van het ruimtevaartuig met de brandstof die deze nodig heeft voor de reis naar Mars.” Als dat gebeurd is, zal de lander enkele tests ondergaan die erop gericht zijn om heel nauwkeurig het massamiddelpunt vast te stellen. “Dat moeten we weten om ons ervan te verzekeren dat de binnenkomst en afdaling in de Martiaanse atmosfeer gaat zoals gepland.”
Mars InSight in volle glorie.
Afbeelding: NASA / JPL-CALTECH.
Mei Er is dus nog wel wat werk aan de winkel. Maar de onderzoekers hebben dan ook nog enkele maanden te gaan. Pas vanaf 5 mei kan er gelanceerd worden. Dat heeft alles te maken met de positie van Mars ten opzichte van de aarde. Die is elke 26 maanden gedurende enkele weken bijzonder gunstig voor het op pad sturen van Marsmissies. En in 2018 loopt die gunstige lanceerperiode van 5 mei tot 8 juni.
Als alles volgens plan gaat, zal Mars InSight in november op Mars arriveren. En daar gaat deze Marslander baanbrekende onderzoeken doen. Zo is InSight de allereerste missie die erop gericht is om diep onder het oppervlak van Mars te gluren. De sonde is daartoe uitgerust met een boor die tot zo’n 4,5 meter diep kan reiken. Het is de bedoeling dat Mars InSight onder meer de hitte afkomstig uit het binnenste van Mars gaat meten en bevingen op Mars onderzoekt.
Hubble ontdekt enorm veel water in de atmosfeer van exoplaneet WASP-39b
Hubble ontdekt enorm veel water in de atmosfeer van exoplaneet WASP-39b
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Het suggereert dat deze exoplaneet heel anders ontstaan is dan gedacht.
Om een beeld te krijgen van de samenstelling van de atmosfeer van WASP-39b zetten astronomen ruimtetelescopen Hubble en Spitzer in. De telescopen bestudeerden het licht van moederster WASP-39 nadat het door de atmosfeer van WASP-39b was gereisd. Het levert het meest complete spectrum van de atmosfeer van een exoplaneet op. Sterker nog: het is het meest gedetailleerde inkijkje in de atmosfeer van een exoplaneet dat we met de huidige telescopen kunnen verkrijgen.
Water En door het licht dat door de atmosfeer van WASP-39b heen sijpelt, te bestuderen, konden de onderzoekers vervolgens meer zeggen over de samenstelling van die atmosfeer. En het levert een grote verrassing op. Zo blijkt de atmosfeer van deze Saturnus-achtige planeet ontzettend veel water te bevatten: WASP-39b heeft zo’n drie keer meer water dan ‘onze’ Saturnus!
Deze artistieke impressie laat WASP-39b en een stukje van zijn moederster zien.
Afbeelding: NASA, ESA & G. Bacon (STScI).
Ontstaansgeschiedenis Het suggereert dat WASP-39b heel anders ontstaan is dan de Saturnus in ons zonnestelsel. De grote hoeveelheden water in de atmosfeer wijzen erop dat de planeet ooit gebombardeerd werd door grote hoeveelheden ijzig materiaal. Dat materiaal zou de exoplaneet vervolgens in zijn atmosfeer hebben opgesloten. Maar de exoplaneet kan alleen aan zo’n bombardement zijn blootgesteld als deze op dat moment veel verder van zijn moederster verwijderd was dan nu het geval is. “Exoplaneten laten ons zien dat de vorming van planeten gecompliceerder en verwarrender is dan we dachten dat het was,” aldus onderzoeker Hannah Wakeford. “En dat is fantastisch.”
PERMANENTE DAGZIJDE
WASP-39b heeft een synchrone rotatieperiode, wat betekent dat altijd dezelfde zijde van de planeet op de moederster gericht is. Die permanente dagzijde is gloeiendheet. Maar doordat WASP-39b krachtige winden kent die de warmte van die dagzijde naar de nachtzijde transporteren, is die nachtzijde ongeveer net zo warm.
Hete Saturnus WASP-39b bevindt zich op zo’n 700 lichtjaar afstand van de aarde en heeft een massa die vergelijkbaar is met die van Saturnus. Alleen staat WASP-39b veel dichter bij zijn moederster dan Saturnus bij de zon staat. Sterker nog: de afstand tussen WASP-39b en zijn moederster is zo’n acht keer kleiner(!) dan de afstand tussen onze zon en Mercurius. Het betekent dat WASP-39b in tegenstelling tot Saturnus ontzettend warm is: zo’n 776,7 graden Celsius (zie kader). Onderzoekers spreken dan ook wel van een ‘hete Saturnus’. Hoewel we zulke planeten niet in ons zonnestelsel aantreffen, kan WASP-39b wel meer inzicht geven in hoe en waar planeten ontstaan en ons helpen om de evolutie van ons eigen zonnestelsel beter te doorgronden. “We moeten naar buiten kijken om ons eigen zonnestelsel te begrijpen,” aldus Wakeford.
Vervolgonderzoek met nog krachtigere telescopen kan mogelijk een nog beter beeld geven van de atmosfeer én ontstaansgeschiedenis van WASP-39b. We moeten daar echter nog wel even op wachten. De opvolger van Hubble – de nog krachtigere James Webb-telescoop – wordt naar verwachting pas volgend jaar gelanceerd.
Het multiversum: pure science-fiction of heel wetenschappelijk verantwoord?
Het multiversum: pure science-fiction of heel wetenschappelijk verantwoord?
Caroline Kraaijvanger
Hoe een wild idee uitgroeide tot een mogelijk oplossing voor het grootste natuurkundige probleem dat we kennen.
Met name sci-fi-schrijvers zijn er dol op: het multiversum. Maar wie denkt dat dit wilde idee enkel het domein van fantasten is, heeft het mis. De laatste decennia duikt de term ‘multiversum’ namelijk ook steeds vaker op in wetenschappelijke papers, geschreven door heel respectabele wetenschappers. En in veel van die papers wordt het idee van een multiversum niet keihard onderuit geschoffeld, maar verder afgetast en niet zelden omarmd. “Er zijn veel wetenschappers die denken dat het multiversum bestaat,” vertelt professor Daniel Baumann, verbonden aan de Faculteit der Natuurwetenschappen, Wiskunde en Informatica van de Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Wat is het multiversum? Voor we ons verder in hun redeneringen verdiepen, is het goed om helder te krijgen wat we nu eigenlijk onder een multiversum moeten verstaan. “Je hebt het universum en dat werd lang gedefinieerd als: alles.” Maar met de opkomst van het idee van het multiversum was die definitie duidelijk niet afdoende. “Daarom definiëren we het universum nu als alles wat we kunnen zien. Er wordt dan ook wel gesproken van het waarneembare universum. Het multiversum is dan eigenlijk ook niets anders dan een verzameling van meerdere van die waarneembare universa die overigens helemaal losstaan van elkaar.”
De kosmologische constante en snaartheorie Dat ons universum niet het enige universum is, is geen nieuw idee. Maar pas sinds een paar decennia zijn ook respectabele onderzoekers bereid gebleken om dat idee enigszins serieus te nemen. Het is volgens Baumann te herleiden naar een aantal schokkende ontdekkingen en theorieën die in de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw gepresenteerd werden: – Het begint met de kosmische inflatie-theorie die volgens sommigen onomstotelijk leidt tot het ontstaan van een multiversum. Volgens de kosmische inflatie-theorie zou het heelal kort na de oerknal een fase hebben doorgemaakt waarin het in zeer korte tijd – een fractie van een seconde – zeker quintiljoenen (dat is een 1 met 30 nullen) keren groter werd. In de loop van de tijd werden er tientallen modellen ontwikkeld die deze inflatie beschreven. En veel ervan voorspellen een ‘eeuwige inflatie’: oftewel een inflatie die nooit gestopt is. Dat is verrassend, want ons universum dijt nog wel uit, maar lang niet zo snel als kort na de oerknal. Hoe zit dat? Sommige onderzoekers stellen dat het te verklaren is doordat de ruimtetijd het ten tijde van de kosmische inflatie zwaar te verduren kreeg, waardoor bubbels in die ruimtetijd ontstonden. En elke van die bubbels herbergde een universum met zijn eigen natuurwetten (ook wel pocket universes genoemd). In sommige van die bubbels – zoals de onze – stopte de supersnelle uitdijing, in andere ging deze door. Ondertussen zou de inflatie ook tussen de bubbels doorzetten, waardoor deze letterlijk uiteengroeien en er tussen de bubbels ruimte ontstaat waarin continu nieuwe bubbels – en dus oneindig veel universa – kunnen ontstaan.
Kort na de oerknal vond de inflatie plaats: gedurende een fractie van een seconde groeide het universum enorm.
– Misschien wel de belangrijkste aanwijzing voor het bestaan van een multiversum is volgens Baumann echter de versnelde uitdijing van het waarneembare heelal. In 1998 ontdekten onderzoekers aan de hand van supernova’s dat het heelal versneld uitdijt. Dat was alleen te verklaren als er sprake was van een kosmologische constante: een onzichtbare energie in het heelal (we noemen deze nu: donkere energie) die afstotend werkt. Maar met die versnelde uitdijing en benodigde kosmologische constante werd een groot natuurkundig probleem geboren. Want experimenten wezen uit dat de kosmologische constante veel kleiner is dan de theorie voorspelt. Baumann noemt het het grootste probleem in de natuurkunde. “Als dit probleem er niet was, zou ik zeggen dat we niet eens over het multiversum hoeven te praten. Maar het multiversum lost dit probleem op.”
“ALS ER VERSCHILLENDE NIET MET ELKAAR IN VERBINDING STAANDE UNIVERSA ZIJN, VERTELT SNAARTHEORIE ONS DAT ZE HEEL VERSCHILLENDE EIGENSCHAPPEN ZOUDEN KUNNEN HEBBEN”
– Om dat te begrijpen, moeten we een sprongetje maken naar de derde en laatste theorie: de snaartheorie. Volgens deze theorie is materie, maar ook energie opgebouwd uit snaren. De theorie heeft echter één grote beperking: hij vereist minstens tien dimensies en wij kennen er maar vier. Sommige onderzoekers vermoeden dan ook dat de ‘missende dimensies’ niet waarneembaar zijn, doordat ze heel compact ‘opgerold’ zijn. Maar – nu komt het – om die extra dimensies onwaarneembaar klein te houden, moet je energie toevoegen. En de energie die in die extra dimensies zit opgeslagen, draagt bij aan de kosmologische constante. Daarnaast zijn er tal van manieren waarop je die extra dimensies kunt oprollen en elke manier resulteert in een compleet andere set natuurwetten. “Als er verschillende niet met elkaar in verbinding staande universa zijn, vertelt snaartheorie ons dat ze heel verschillende eigenschappen zouden kunnen hebben,” aldus Baumann. En ook de kosmologische constante in elk van die universa kan dus net weer ietsje anders zijn. Dat we in ons heelal zo’n kleine kosmologische constante meten, is volgens sommige onderzoekers dan ook vooral een kwestie van geluk hebben. Want met een kosmologische constante die net iets groter is, zouden deeltjes niet eens de kans krijgen om zich aan elkaar te binden, laat staan dat er sterren, planeten en uiteindelijk leven kan ontstaan. “We leven waar we kunnen leven,” zo vat Baumann die theorie samen.
Op zoek naar bewijs En daarmee lijkt het idee van het multiversum het rijk der fabelen te zijn ontgroeid. Maar bewezen is het nog niet. Wat ons natuurlijk bij de vraag brengt of dat überhaupt ooit mogelijk is. Volgens Baumann hebben verschillende onderzoekers zich daar reeds het hoofd over gebroken, maar tot een overtuigend antwoord kwamen ze niet. Veelal wordt voorgesteld op zoek te gaan naar sporen van botsingen tussen pocket universes. Kort na hun ontstaan moeten die bubbels immers vrij dicht bij elkaar hebben gezeten en het lijkt niet onaannemelijk dat het wel eens tot botsingen is gekomen. “Je kunt het vergelijken met wanneer je water kookt: het water zet snel uit en er ontstaan bubbels die botsen.” Dergelijke botsingen kunnen in het geval van de pocket universeshun sporen na hebben gelaten in wat onderzoekers de kosmische achtergrondstraling noemen: warmtestraling die kort na de oerknal is uitgezonden. De afgelopen decennia is deze kosmische achtergrondstraling met behulp van verschillende instrumenten onderzocht en daarbij is natuurlijk ook gezocht naar sporen van botsingen met andere universa. “Maar er is niets gevonden,” vertelt Baumann. Echt verrassend is dat wellicht niet. Baumann wijst erop dat een botsing tussen twee pocket universes al snel resulteert in de ondergang van beiden. “Dus het is nog niet zo gemakkelijk voor twee universa om elkaar aan te raken zonder dat ze elkaar vernietigen.”
Nachtmerrie Bewijs voor het bestaan van het universum is dus lastig te verkrijgen. En dat is ook de reden dat Baumann er niet enthousiast over is. “Ik vind het niks. Het is lastig om dingen die we niet kunnen zien te toetsen, te definiëren en te voorspellen.” Maar dat is wel waar de natuurkunde om draait: “Beschrijven wat we zien, wat we kunnen manipuleren en aanraken.” Met andere universa gaat dat niet (zie kader). “Maar tegelijkertijd kan ik ook niet ontkennen dat het multiversum bestaat,” stelt Baumann. In die zin zou je het multiversum de nachtmerrie van elke natuurkundige kunnen noemen.
In science-fictionfilms die het multiversum als een voldongen feit presenteren, zie je regelmatig dat mensen van het ene naar het andere universum reizen. Zou dat mogelijk zijn in het multiversum waar de verschillende wetenschappelijke theorieën voorzichtig op hinten? “In eerste instantie zou ik zeggen van niet, omdat de bubbels niet met elkaar in verbinding staan en omdat we niet verder kunnen reizen dan we kunnen zien (oftewel niet sneller kunnen reizen dan het licht, wat wel nodig zou zijn om het waarneembare universum te kunnen verlaten, red.).” Dat gezegd hebbende, wil Baumann er wel direct een kanttekening bij plaatsen. Want hoewel de algemene relativiteitstheorie stelt dat we niet sneller kunnen reizen dan het licht, is dat in theorie wel mogelijk, namelijk middels een wormgat. “Dat is volgens mij de enige optie om van het ene naar het andere universum te reizen.” Maar wormgaten zijn tot op heden niet gevonden, dus afgaand op wat we nu kennen, blijft de conclusie dat we vastzitten in ons eigen universum.
En misschien is het idee van het multiversum ook wel meer een vloek dan een zegen. Het roept in ieder geval een interessante filosofische vraag op. “Is dit wetenschap? Kunnen we geloven dat iets echt is als we het nooit gezien hebben?” Je zou misschien denken van niet. Maar die conclusie zul je Baumann niet zo snel horen trekken. Hij onderbouwt dat door te verwijzen naar de quarks: elementaire deeltjes die we onmogelijk kunnen waarnemen, maar toch alom geaccepteerd zijn. “Er is een theorie (het Standaardmodel van de deeltjesfysica, red.) en die hebben we op alle mogelijke manieren getest en elke keer weer blijkt dat we de quarks nodig te hebben. En daarom geloven we dat ze bestaan, ook al is het onmogelijk om een vrije quark waar te nemen.” Op vergelijkbare manier zouden we – ook al kunnen we het niet zien – het multiversum kunnen omarmen. Sterker nog: het is misschien wel het beste waar we op mogen hopen. “Ik ben niet zo hoopvol dat we andere universa gaan observeren,” stelt Baumann. “Dus ik hoop dat we een theorie kunnen ontwikkelen waarvan verschillende aspecten getest kunnen worden en waaruit blijkt dat het multiversum een onvermijdelijke consequentie van inflatie en snaartheorie is.”
“HET MULTIVERSUM KAN ERVOOR ZORGEN DAT WETENSCHAPPERS TE SNEL OPGEVEN”
Zover zijn we echter nog lang niet. Op dit moment is het multiversum geen onvermijdelijke consequentie van allerhande theorieën, maar enkel een fraai passende oplossing voor een groot natuurkundig probleem. Baumann illustreert dat aan de hand van een voorbeeld. “De astronoom Johannes Kepler vroeg zich lang geleden af waarom de aarde zo ver van de zon staat. Hij probeerde daar een theorie voor te bedenken. Later zou blijken dat daar helemaal geen theorie voor ontwikkeld kan worden. Want toen we naar andere planetaire systemen gingen kijken, ontdekten we dat het toeval is: we leven hier, omdat we elders niet kunnen leven. Nu is de aarde geen fundamenteel concept in de natuur. De kosmologische constante is dat wel. En op dit moment zijn we geneigd die te verklaren, zoals we de afstand tussen de zon en de aarde verklaren: door er andere universa bij te halen en te concluderen dat we gewoon geluk hebben gehad met onze kleine kosmologische constante. En daarmee lijkt de puzzel opgelost.” Maar in tegenstelling tot de planetaire systemen uit het voorbeeldje van Johannes Kepler, kunnen we die andere universa niet waarnemen of aantonen dat hun bestaan – zoals dat van de quarks onvermijdelijk is – en dus hangt de oplossing van de puzzel van aannames aan elkaar. Wat ons terugbrengt bij de vraag van Baumann: “Is dit wetenschap?” Daar kun je in dit stadium over discussiëren. Maar één ding staat wel vast: het multiversum drukt wel een stempel op de wetenschap. Nu al. “Het ontmoedigt onderzoekers om echte oplossingen te vinden en kan ervoor zorgen dat ze te snel opgeven.” Niet alleen als het gaat om het multiversum, maar ook om andere lastig te verklaren problemen in de natuurkunde.
En zo blijft het multiversum naar verwachting nog wel even onderwerp van discussie. “Wetenschappers houden ervan of ze hebben er een hekel aan. Maar weinigen hebben er geen mening over. Het is een polariserend thema dat de manier waarop we wetenschap bedrijven kan herschrijven.”
Bronmateriaal:
Interview met Daniel Baumann Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: gegamar0 / Pixabay
Do 12,000-Year-Old Texts Hint An Atomic Bomb Exploded On Earth Destroying Civilization?
Do 12,000-Year-Old Texts Hint An Atomic Bomb Exploded On Earth Destroying Civilization?
Does this 12,000-Year-Old Text Reveal An Atomic Bomb Exploded on Earth In The Distant Past?
More than 12,000 years ago, an incredible event left a mark in the ancient Hinducivilization.
Countless ancient texts describe fascinating accounts that many authors believed, occurred thousands of years ago on Earth. While many ancient civilizations across the globe have left a mark in history with countless ancient scripts, monuments, and objects that force us to reevaluate what we know about history, many of these accounts are perceived with a notion of disbelief by mainstream scholars. Some call these accounts as mythology, some refer to it as folklore, but the truth is that there are countless ancient texts that indicate how ancient civilizations around the globe experienced incredible things, and they made sure to document them as well as they could.
Controversial as it may be, many people around the world believe there is a high chance that in the distant past, tens of thousands of years ago, mankind was visited by beings, not of Earth. Many people still believe we are being visited even today, and there is ample evidence that suggests we are continuously visited by civilizations, not from Earth. Today, evidence of visitations can be found in countless images, videos, and recordings made available to the public. There are countless videos and images of alleged UFO sightings. Some of them may not be real, but some of them could very well be the real deal.
However, how would ancient mankind, thousands of years ago document what they had seen? Imagine living 10,000 years ago somewhere in India, and you look up to the sky and see what is today referred to as a UFO. How would you best document that experience?
Ancient civilizations across the world resorted to rock art, petroglyphs, geoglyphs, potteryart, and even in writing. From the Gods who came down from heaven, mentioned in numerous ancient cultures across the globe, to incredible flying ‘discs’ mentioned by the ancient Egyptians thousands of years ago, evidence that suggests we have been visited by ancient aliens can be found all around us.
Possible written evidence of ancient alien contact and advanced technology existing on Earth thousands of years ago can perhaps be found if we take a look at the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
These ancient texts are believed to document incredible technologies, and stories of what many believe is evidence of flesh and blood aliens among us.
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana.
It consists of 100,000 verses divided into 18parts or books that are equivalent to eight times the Iliad and Odyssey combined.
These ancient texts are more than a historical narration.
It is a combination of facts, legends stories, and myths.
A vast collection of didactic discourses written in a beautiful language, nurturing all Hindu mythology and creating one of the major world religions: Hinduism.
Among those historical texts, we see a story of a devastating event that occurred thousands of years ago. This event, incomparable to any other historic even in ancient history, sounds very familiar to events that rocked modern history: The use of atomicbombs.
Historian Kisari Mohan Ganguli, argues that the Mahabharataand the Ramayana are full of descriptions of largenuclearholocausts that are apparently of incredibly higher proportions than those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Curiously, when a student asked Dr. Oppenheimer if the first nuclear device that went off was the one at Alamogordo. during the Manhattan Project, he responded… Well … yes. In modern times, yes, of course.
So, what does that ancient text say? And how can you be sure it actually describes a nuclear event, unfolding on Earth thousands of years ago?
A manuscript illustration of the Sky Battle of Kurukshetra, fought between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, recorded in the Mahabharata Epic.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
The ancient Hindu text, the Mahabharata:
“Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful Vimana, hurled a single projectile charged with the power of the Universe.
An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendor.
It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable.
Hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white.
…After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected… …to escape from this fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment.”
A second passage:
“Dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy. A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts. All points of the compass were lost in darkness. Fierce wind began to blow Clouds roared upward, showering dust and gravel.
Birds croaked madly… the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon.
Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy… over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass, the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely.”
— The Mahabharata
The above text describes a violent and terrible event, one that many authors argue, can only be compared to a nuclear bomb detonating on Earth.
However, there are many other references in the Ramayana which seem to be very similar to those described in the above text.
But is there evidence, other than the texts supporting the theory that a nuclear device detonated on Earth thousands of years ago?
According to ancient astronaut theorists, there is.
The evidence, note ancient astronaut theorists, was found in 1992, when researchers discovered in Rajasthan, 16 kilometers west of Jodhpur, a layer of radioactive ash, covering an area of about eight square kilometers.
The radiation was allegedly so intense that it still contaminates the area today.
The ancient archaeological sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro are treated as another important piece of evidence- There, experts discovered skeletons scattered throughout the area almost as if a sudden, extremely destructive event occurred there, devastating entire cities.
“(It was a weapon) so powerful that it could destroy the earth in an instant– A great soaring sound in smoke and flames– And on it sits death…”
— The Ramayana
So what really happened thousands of years ago? What did ancient man document in these ancient texts? Is it really possible that a device similar to an atomic bomb exploded on Earth, some 12,000 years ago?
Do the Mahabharata and the Ramayana really describe nuclear weapons? If so where did these weapons come from? The Gods?
If an atomic bomb really went off in the past, was a crater left behind? Ancient Astronaut theorists say yes, and point to a crater with 2154 meters in diameter, located 400 kilometers from Mumbai.
The date the crater was created, according to experts, ranges from 12,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Scientists Suggest The Moon Was Created 1,000 Years Before Our Planet, And It Formed Inside Earth
Scientists Suggest The Moon Was Created 1,000 Years Before Our Planet, And It Formed Inside Earth
Not only do researchers suggest the moon formed before the Earth, but they also indicate how the moon formed ‘inside’ a sort of vaporized Earth at temperatures of 2,200 ° C to 3,300 ° C and pressures of tens of atmospheres.
The Moon formed within a cloud of vaporized rock, and perhaps it came into existence before our own planet suggests a new scientific theory.
Most scientists believe that the Moon originated as a result of the impact of a Mars-sized body called Theia against Earth, some 4.5 billion years ago.
The violent clash threw rocks and molten metals into the orbit of our planet that ended up merging with each other, eventually forming Earth’s eternal companion we see in the sky.
However, a new study led by the University of California Davis and the Harvard University tells a different story than we have heard in the last few decades; The Moon may have formed before our planet, radically changing everything we know about our satellite and planet.
“The new work explains features of the moon that are hard to resolve with current ideas,’ said Sarah Stewart, a professor at the University of California Davis.
“The moon is chemically almost the same as the Earth, but with some differences,” she said. “This is the first model that can match the pattern of the moon’s composition.”
Researchers suggest how Earth’s satellite was formed before, and at much higher temperatures, than the formation of our planet.
The new explanation, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, recognizes episodes of the collision, but not in the way that was counted so far.
Meet Synestia, a new theory of formation
(Sarah Stewart/UC Davis based on NASA rendering)
According to the new version, the Moon arose inside the Earth, when our planet was inside a “synestia,” a huge, spinning, doughnut-shaped mass of hot, vaporized rock.
It is a new type of planetary object, recently proposed by the same authors, which is also formed by the brutal clash of other large bodies.
Its name derives from «syn» together, and «Hestia» the Greek goddess of architecture.
The authors of the new study believe that these cosmic donuts were gigantic, up to ten times the size of Earth, but probably did not last long, only around hundreds of years.
They shrink rapidly as they radiate heat, which causes the rock vapor to condense into liquid and eventually collapse into a molten planet.
“Our model starts with a collision that forms a synestia,” explains Simon Lock, a Harvard researcher.
“The Moon was formed inside the vaporized Earth at temperatures of 2,200 ° C to 3,300 ° C and pressures of tens of atmospheres,” he concludes.
Mr. Lock indicates how isotope tests have revealed a fingerprint which undoubtedly proves that our planet and its faithful companion, the moon, are nearly identical.
Despite this fact, studies have proven that our moon has far less volatile elements like potassium, sodium, and copper, which are relatively common on Earth.
“There hasn’t been a good answer for this,” Mr. Lock said.
“People have proposed several explanations for how the moon could have wound up with fewer volatiles, but no one has been able to quantitatively match the moon’s composition.”
As explained in the new synestia theory, cosmic bodies are created within a so-called ‘seed,’ a relatively small amount of liquid rock located in the center of the swirling cloud of super-hot matter.
As the material cools over time, the vaporized rock turns into a liquid.
Eventually, the molten rock falls down throughout the cloud and most of it gathers around the seed to form a plane.
Scientists suggest that as our planet was formed, some of the rock-rain condensed at the surface of the Synestia, and rained down onto the proto-moon, while the Earth synestia gradually shrank.
The moon was created before, and at much higher temperatures.
Scientists say that apart from this difference, the celestial bodies are nearly identical.
According to the new theory, the moon may have formed around 1,000 Years before our planet as it emerged from the synestia much faster.
Mr. Lock explained how “the rate of rainfall is about ten times that of a hurricane on Earth.”
“Over time, the whole structure shrinks, and the moon emerges from the vapor. Eventually, the whole synestia condenses and what’s left is a ball of spinning liquid rock that eventually forms the Earth as we know it today,” he added.
And despite the fact that scientists came up with a relatively solid theory, there’s still some work to do.
“We’ve done calculations of each of the processes that go into forming the moon and show that the model could work, but there are various aspects of our theory that will need more interrogation. For example, when the moon is in this vapor, what does it do to that vapor? How does it perturb it? How does the vapor flow past the moon? These are all things we need to go back and examine in more detail.”
Moon formed when small planet CRASHED head on with Earth creating ‘dust doughnut’
Moon formed when small planet CRASHED head on with Earth creating ‘dust doughnut’
THE Moon was formed when a planet in its infancy crashed into Earth which resulted in a ‘dust doughnut’ around our planet that would go on to become the lunar satellite.
Moon formed when small planet CRASHED head on with Earth creating ‘dust doughnut’
Experts had previously believed the Moon was formed when a Mars-sized infant planet – known as Theia – hit Earth with a glancing blow, striking at a 45 degree angle some 4.5 billion years ago.
As a result, chunks of Theia and Earth collected in Earth’s orbit to eventually form the Moon.
But experts from Harvard University, the University of Bristol and University of California now believe the chance the collision actually happened are virtually impossible.
New research suggests Earth did hit another small planet some 4.5 billion years ago, but the collision was head on.
The impact was so intense that it vaporised the smaller planet, creating a ring of dust – called a synestia – around Earth.
Chunks of molten rock from Earth joined the synestia, which allowed the Moon to form.
In astronomical terms, synestias are extremely brief, only lasting for a couple hundred years, before they shrink rapidly, causing rock vapour to condense into liquid, which ultimately becomes the core of a planet, or in this case the Moon.
According to experts in the study, this would explain why the Moon has a different chemical composition from Earth as the majority of it is formed from another planet.
Sarah Stewart, professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at University of California, said: "The Moon is chemically almost the same as the Earth, but with some differences.
"This is the first model that can match the pattern of the Moon's composition."
Simon Lock, graduate student at Harvard and visiting student at UC Davis who first developed the idea of synestias, said: "Our model starts with a collision that forms a synestia.
"The Moon forms inside the vaporized Earth at temperatures of four to six thousand degrees Fahrenheit and pressures of tens of atmospheres."
Unprecedented: 7,000-Year-Old Submerged Archaeological Site Found Off The Coast Of Florida
Unprecedented: 7,000-Year-Old Submerged Archaeological Site Found Off The Coast Of Florida
“This will forever transform the way we approach offshore archaeology.”
An ancestral burial site belonging to native America culture has been found under the ocean near Key Manasota (Manasota Key Offshore, MKO), on the west coast of the Florida peninsula, local secretary of state Ken Detzner recently announced.
The research carried out so far shows that during the Early Archaic Period, when the sea level was much lower than at present, the area where the Cay is located was not submerged and there was a small freshwater lake where the ancient Floridians buried their deceased.
The site near the community of Venice was first discovered by an amateur diver in June 2016, who reported the find to the Archaeological Research Office (BAR) pointing towards the existence of possible human remains in the area.
A carved wooden stake discovered by divers. Image Credit: Ivor Mollema/Florida Department of State
As it is illegal to excavate any site where there are burials, underwater archaeologists had to use other techniques and tools. Experts used sonar and magnetometers for their research and, after a year and a half, they are finally able to claim that the area, with less than an acre of extension (around of 4 thousand square meters), was firm land not covered by the sea during the Early Archaic Period.
Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said in a statement that the archaeological site called MKO is located on the continental shelf, off the west coast of the state, in what was once a freshwater lake, when sea levers where much lower than at present.
As the sea level rose, that lake was submerged by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and covered by material known as “peat.” This is a brown material consisting of partly decomposed vegetable matter forming a deposit on acidic, boggy, ground; This peat remained intact in the seabed, which helped preserve the ancient remains.
Underwater archaeologists mapped the entire site.
Image Credit: Ivor Mollema/Florida Department of State
According to Detzner, BAR archaeologists have done “an incredible work of documentation and research that can help understand the native peoples better.”
The Secretary of State stressed that “out of respect for the individuals buried there and their possible alive descendants,” divers and other persons are prohibited from accessing the site, already protected by the laws of Florida and controlled by representatives of the forces of order that perform frequent patrols.
Timothy Parsons, director of the Historical Resources Division of the State Department, said that the MKO deposit is “a revelation for the world of archeology.”
Ryan Duggins, supervisor of underwater archeology at the BAR, considered “inspiring” the fact that found a submerged field under the Gulf of Mexico “so well preserved.”
“This will forever change the way we approach offshore archaeology.”
Image Credit: Ivor Mollema/Florida Department of State
“We now know that this type of site exists on the continental shelf,” said Duggins.
On behalf of the Seminole people, Paul Backhouse, head of tribal historical conservation, expressed his satisfaction at being able to elaborate a plan with other institutions that will “allow the ancestors to continue resting in peace without human interference for the next 7 thousand years.”
“We are truly humbled by this experience,” Duggins explained in a statement.
“It is important to remember that this is a burial site and must be treated with the utmost respect.”
Als je in een zwart gat springt kun je eeuwig blijven leven. Deze studie laat zien waar je mogelijk uitkomt
Als je in een zwart gat springt kun je eeuwig blijven leven. Deze studie laat zien waar je mogelijk uitkomt
Als je in een zwart gat springt zul je niet aan stukken worden gescheurd, maar kom je in een vreemde realiteit terecht. Dat suggereert althans een nieuwe studie.
Zwarte gaten zouden je verleden uitwissen en je naar een parallel universum sturen met een oneindig aantal mogelijke toekomsten.
Als gevolg daarvan zou je eeuwig kunnen leven, zo claimen onderzoekers.
Ander universum
In ons universum is er vanwege de natuurkundige wetten maar één toekomst mogelijk.
Wiskundige Peter Hintz van de Universiteit van Californië – Berkeley kwam tot de ontdekking dat in zogeheten Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter-zwarte gaten andere wetten lijken te gelden.
Als je in zulke zwarte gaten springt, kun je dat mogelijk navertellen. Als je namelijk de singulariteit weet te omzeilen kun je in een ander universum terechtkomen.
Tegelijkertijd
Wat er vervolgens gebeurt is niet bekend, omdat de relatie tussen oorzaak en gevolg in een dergelijk universum niet bestaat. Alles wat is, was en zal zijn is tegelijkertijd mogelijk.
Professor Hintz bestudeerde een specifiek soort niet-roterend zwart gat, dat een zogeheten Cauchy-horizon bevat.
Die Cauchy-horizon zorgt ervoor dat het verleden niet langer de toekomst bepaalt. Natuurkundigen hebben altijd gezegd dat deze horizon je zou vernietigen.
Uitzondering
Uit de berekeningen van dr. Hintz blijkt dat Reissner-Nordström-de Sitter-zwarte gaten een uitzondering op de regel vormen. Hier zouden ruimtereizigers ongedeerd doorheen moeten kunnen gaan.
Unusual Heat Anomaly Detected In The Gulf Of Mexico
Unusual Heat Anomaly Detected In The Gulf Of Mexico
An unusual observation has been noticed in the Gulf of Mexico as a persistent heat anomaly continues to appear on multiple instruments and weather maps.
Is an underwater volcano starting to erupt or is a hydro thermal vent possibly? The last reading was 133 degrees!
One of the largest underwater volcanoes, a so-called asphalt volcano, resides in the Gulf of Mexico and is discovered in 2003 by a research expedition to the Gulf of Mexico.
But they not only discovered the underwater volcano, also they discovered alongside the asphalt were areas soaked with petroleum and methane hydrate, also spewed from the volcano.
Is it possible that the strange heat anomaly comes from this huge underwater volcano and could it be a sign of an underwater eruption or a sign that the volcano has come back to life?
Pilots report intruder ‘UFO’ spotted in broad daylight
Pilots report intruder ‘UFO’ spotted in broad daylight
Allison Yee
It was the bizarre sight that had pilots and air traffic controllers stumped.
Flying high above the ground over Crater Lake in Oregon, an unregistered aircraft was causing havoc as baffled pilots radioed in reports of an unidentified object flying outside registered flight plans.
On the ground, it was a similar situation, with radars alerting air traffic controllers to a mystery object in the air.
Pilots and air traffic officials noticed the suspicious flying object in the air last October. Photo: Getty
Now audio obtained by blog The Drive has revealed an exchange between officials as they struggled to figure out the incident last October.
"You know that target south of the boundary there? The 0027 code moving very fast at 37,000?" a radar operator can be heard saying.
The object was evident on radars, but wasn't responding to any attempts to communicate.
Photo: Getty
"Oh, look at that thing,” replies a centre controller. “Huh, um and you don’t have anything on him?"
With the operator replying he didn’t, the Sun reports sightings of the object continued for another 30 minutes, and saw another United Airlines flight calling in reports of a ‘large white plane’.
Fighter jets were dispatched to investigate - but the object disappeared.
Photo: Getty
Officials took the sightings seriously, with F-15 fighter jets later taking off from Portland International Airport in a bid to investigate and intercept the object.
However their search was futile as the flying object has mysteriously vanished.
"The fighter scrambled, they went out looking around a little bit but we, you know, we lost anybody having sight of the aircraft,” the Sun reports a FAA Seattle Center Official saying.
Spooky footage shows 'fleet' of 10 UFOs
VIDEO The eerie video shows the tiny specks circling before vanishing into thin air. Facebook/Daniel Zeljkovich
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STASI: Don’t worry, chances of an alien cyber-attack are much lower than total human annihilation
STASI:Don’t worry, chances of an alien cyber-attack are much lower than total human annihilation
If aliens wanted to attack us, they don't need to hack our computers, they'd just bio-germ us into non-existence.
(STOCKSNAPPER/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO)
Cyber-attack anyone? Never mind the Russians — what about the Martians?
Two astrophysicists, whose heads are more in the clouds than in outer space, have just published a research paper proposing that aliens could/might cyber hack attack the Earth causing chaos, mass destruction or maybe universal (like the whole universe) good times. And it's getting a lot of international, and perhaps even inter-species, attention.
The non-peer reviewed paper, (in other words not written for other astrophysicists to evaluate it), by Michael Hippke of the Sonneberg Observatory in Germany and John Learned, of the University of Hawaii, says this cyber attack could come from something as simple as a friendly message about possible communication between us and E.T.
Or as they put it: "A complex message from space may require the use of computers to display, analyze and understand. Such a message cannot be decontaminated with certainty, and technical risks remain which can pose an existential threat. Complex messages would need to be destroyed in the risk averse case."
Not so fast, brother. I asked two people who know more about this stuff, than, well, anybody if that makes any sense.
Hell, they said, if aliens wanted to attack us, they don't need to hack our computers, they'd just bio-germ us into non-existence. So rest assured, there is no risk, repeat no risk of E.T.s hacking your Instagram account and posting naked pictures of themselves.
Why would aliens from deep space bother hacking our Facebook pages when they can just steal our DNA?
(CHRIS CLOR/GETTY IMAGES/BLEND IMAGES)
Retired Army Col. John Alexander, a former Green Beret and founder of the Advanced Theoretical Physics Group, who ran the military's psychokinesis group (bending metal with the mind) and author of the book UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities, told me, "While hypothetically possible, the probability is so remote as to not be worth any concern, let alone time and effort in countering it." Ouch.
"E.T. alien cyber-attacks don't make sense on any level. They don't need to sow discord as we already have that on our own. If they were to invade, a biological attack makes far more sense. If E.T. understands the physics of getting to Earth, they also understand biology. Therefore, if control or depopulation is the goal, bio-warfare is far easier than mano-a-mano ala Hollywood. Why risk a fight when they could wipe us out without loss of any of their lives. They could also repopulate using cloning technology and just raise a docile herd."
Dr. Alexander believes the real threat comes more from AI that we create ourselves than from a cyber hack attack from outer space.
Even Bill Birnes, who starred in History Channel's "UFO Hunters," and is the author of the upcoming, "UFOs and The White House: What did Our Presidents Know and When did They Know It?" said, "Art from as far back as the Middle Ages, notations in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and stories from other cultures all point to the presence of some types of anomalous craft in the skies. Even Ezekiel is specific about what is flying above him. If aliens wanted to take over this planet, why worry about computer code?"
Alien obsession around the world
And he continued, "An advanced species looking to inhabit Earth would concern themselves more with the DNA code and seek gradually to hybridize our race. Hybridizing our species, which I believe is already taking place, is the most efficient and logical way to take over a planet."
So in other words, why would aliens from deep space bother hacking our Facebook pages when they can just steal our DNA?
Birnes, who has devoted his life to researching UFOs and the aliens aboard them, believes, "We have already become a hybridized species-when our planet was first visited hundreds of thousands of years ago."
We are the extraterrestrials.
Damn! It's just my luck I got to be one of the short greys and not one of tall ones with the giant eyes who never have a bad hair day.
The darling of the microscopic world is the tardigrade, a hardy little microbe that’s so tiny it’s invisible to the naked eye. Nicknamed the “water bear,” this minuscule metazoan can survive some of the harshest climates in our universe, like deep oceans, red-hot geothermal vents, and even the walls of space-bound rockets. But that’s not why humans like them so much. We love them because, up close, the tardigrades we’re familiar with are plump, doughy, and altogether very cute.
But tardigrades are not a species but rather an entire family of organisms, and not all of its members evolved such pleasing aesthetics. On Wednesday, in the journal PLoS One, researchers led by Daniel Stec, Ph.D., from the Jagiellonian University in Poland report the discovery of Macrobiotus shonaicus sp. nov., a newly discovered species of tardigrade.
In this video uploaded by study co-author and Keio University biologist Kazuharu Arakawa, Ph.D., one can’t help but notice this tardigrade is not as cute. If the tardigrades we’re used to seeing look like little water bears, this one looks like a mid-length water bear turd with legs or a small, impaired platypus … if you’re feeling generous.
Alas, like humans among all the great apes, not all tardigrade species can be so lovable. The tardigrade type you’ve probably cooed over is the eutardigrada, images of which are commonly used as visual shorthand for the tardigrade class as a whole. Indeed, close-up shots of eutardigrades themselves, a subclass of over 700 species, make them seem quite cute.
Eutardigrades, in contrast, are objectively adorable.
But there are many species of tardigrades, found all over the world and probably beyond. The new species, M. shonaicus sp. nov., is actually one of 168 known tardigrade species in Japan alone.
The researchers found this aesthetically impaired little guy in a similarly homely place: a scoop of moss from a car park in Tsuruoka-City, Japan, where Arakawa rented an apartment nearby (“specific permission was not required,” the authors note). Using phase contrast light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, they snapped close-up shots of the new species, revealing a scary mouth, scary claws, and really scary eggs.
Here it is in its entirety, looking rather bland:
Kind of leech-like, if you ask me.
Here’s its scary mouth:
M. shonaicus's freaky mouth.
Here are its freaky claws:
Yikes.
The eggs are the pièce de résistance. Close up, they’ve got a bulbous middle that narrows into a floppy opening crowned with wild, ragged filaments. They do not look unlike a ripe pimple caught mid-pop.
See? Not cute.
These scary eggs, however, were key to the organism’s classification as a new species. Though the organism as a whole is most similar to M. anemone from the United States, M. naskreckii from Mozambique, and M. patagonicus from Argentina, the researchers determined that M. shonaicus’ eggs put it into a class of its own.
“[It] can be easily distinguished from these species by the presence of thin flexible filaments on terminal discs of the egg process,” they write, describing the flailing, itchy-looking things in the image above. The eggs, furthermore, have a solid, poreless surface, putting them in a subclass known as the persimilis. The new classification is as follows:
Despite itself, M. shonaicus has earned its place on the tardigrade family tree.
In the biological world, it’s not easy to earn your place as a unique species with its own classification. Perhaps it’s for the best, then, that M. shonaicus has so many, uh, unique features, even though its overall appearance leaves much to be desired.
A small asteroid will zip safely by Earth on Friday (March 2), and you have a chance to see it as a pinprick of light in the sky in a live webcast.
The newfound near-Earth asteroid, called 2018 DV1, is about the size of a bus and will approach within 70,000 miles (113,000 kilometers) of Earth during its flyby, according to scientists with NASA's Asteroid Watch program. The asteroid is about 23 feet (7 meters) wide, the program's asteroid-tracking widget stated.
The Virtual Telescope Project will host a free webcast, led by astrophysicist Gianluca Masi in Ceccano, Italy, for the event. The webcast will feature views of the asteroid as seen by a 16-inch (41 centimeters) robotic telescope at the Tenagra Observatories in Arizona. You can watch the webcast live hereFriday, beginning at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT). [In Photos: Potentially Dangerous Asteroids]
Astronomers using a telescope at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona first spotted asteroid 2018 DV1 on Monday (Feb. 26), according to an updatefrom the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
This NASA graphic shows the orbit of asteroid 2018 DV1 in relation to Earth. The asteroid will fly within 70,000 miles (113,000 kilometers) of Earth on March 2, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Friday's asteroid flyby comes on the heels of another close encounter by the asteroid 2018 DU on Sunday (Feb. 25). That asteroid got within about 196,000 miles (315,000 km) of Earth during that flyby.
The Virtual Telescope Project is also tracking another asteroid, called 2017 VR12, as it makes its ownclose flyby of Earth on March 7. The asteroid will be nearly 870,000 miles (1.4 million km) from Earth at its closest point during the flyby.
According to the Minor Planet Center, asteroid 2017 VR12 is 492 to 1,542 feet (150 to 470 m) wide. That size, combined with its flyby distance to Earth, qualifies the object as a "potentially dangerous" asteroid. But that doesn't mean you should panic; NASA classifies any near-Earth asteroid that is larger than 492 feet across in an orbit that approaches within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km) as a potentially hazardous object.
This NASA graphic shows the orbit of asteroid 2018 DV1 in relation to Earth. The asteroid will fly within 70,000 miles (113,000 kilometers) of Earth on March 2, 2018.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Friday's asteroid flyby comes on the heels of another close encounter by the asteroid 2018 DU on Sunday (Feb. 25). That asteroid got within about 196,000 miles (315,000 km) of Earth during that flyby.
The Virtual Telescope Project is also tracking another asteroid, called 2017 VR12, as it makes its own close flyby of Earth on March 7. The asteroid will be nearly 870,000 miles (1.4 million km) from Earth at its closest point during the flyby.
According to the Minor Planet Center, asteroid 2017 VR12 is 492 to 1,542 feet (150 to 470 m) wide. That size, combined with its flyby distance to Earth, qualifies the object as a "potentially dangerous" asteroid. But that doesn't mean you should panic; NASA classifies any near-Earth asteroid that is larger than 492 feet across in an orbit that approaches within 4.6 million miles (7.5 million km) as a potentially hazardous object.
Black-Hole Bursts Turn 'Mini-Neptunes' into Rocky 'Super-Earths'
Black-Hole Bursts Turn 'Mini-Neptunes' into Rocky 'Super-Earths'
By Samantha Mathewson, Space.com Contributor
A Neptune-like planet's atmosphere (foreground) is swept backward by radiation from an outburst at the center of the Milky Way (right).
Credit: M. Weiss/CfA
Monster black holes near the center of our Milky Way galaxy may have transformed "mini-Neptune" exoplanets into rocky super-Earths, new research shows.
Supermassive black holes are thought to reside at the centers of most, if not all, large galaxies. They gobble up surrounding matter and, in turn, generate bright flares of X-ray and ultraviolet radiation.
The new findings suggest that these powerful bursts could strip nearby exoplanets of their thick, gaseous atmosphere, leaving behind a bare, rocky core. These rocky bodies would likely be heavier than Earth, making them so-called super-Earths, according to a statement from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). [The Strangest Black Holes in the Universe]
"It's pretty wild to think of black holes shaping the evolutionary destiny of a planet, but that very well may be the case in the center of our galaxy," lead study author Howard Chen, a researcher at the Northwestern University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said in the statement.
In the study, the researchers examined the environment surrounding Sagittarius A*, the 4-million-solar-mass supermassive black hole that lurks in the center of our galaxy, around 25,000 light-years from Earth.
"We wondered what these outbursts from Sagittarius A* would do to any planets in its vicinity," study co-author John Forbes, of the CfA, said in the statement. "Our work shows the black hole could dramatically change a planet's life."
Specifically, the researchers studied the effect that the high-energy radiation from Sagittarius A* has on exoplanets that are located less than 70 light-years from the black hole and have masses somewhere between Earth's and Neptune's. These exoplanets can be known as "super-Earths" because they are bigger than our rocky, oceanic Earth, or "mini-Neptunes" because they are smaller than the cold, gas-shrouded Neptune.
The new study shows that the high-energy radiation from Sagittarius A* could blow away a large amount of the thick, gaseous atmosphere of Neptune-like planets near the black hole and leave behind rocky super-Earths, according to the statement.
"These super-Earths are one of the most common types of planet that astronomers have discovered outside our solar system," study co-author Avi Loeb, of the CfA, said in the statement. "Our work shows that in the right environment they might form in exotic ways."
In fact, the recent findings suggest that this process may be the most common way in which rocky super-Earths form near the center of the Milky Way, the researchers said.
It is possible that some of these planets may be found in the habitable zone of a star, where temperatures are just right for liquid water, and perhaps life, to exist. However, it would be difficult for any life to arise in the challenging environment of the galactic center, due to damaging supernova explosions, high-energy gamma-rays and additional black-hole outbursts, which could completely erode a planet's atmosphere, according to the study.
Furthermore, a passing star could cause gravitational disruptions that would tear the planet away from its life-sustaining host star. Such disruptions may be more common in areas packed with stars, such as Sagittarius A*, the researchers said.
"It is generally accepted that the innermost region of the Milky Way is not favorable for life," Loeb said. But "even though the deck seems stacked against life in this region, the likelihood of panspermia, where life is transmitted via interplanetary or interstellar contact, would be much more common in such a dense environment. This process might give life a fighting chance to arise and survive."
Detecting exoplanets near the core of the Milky Way is challenging due to its distance from Earth, abundance of stars and thick clouds of dust and gas that block light. However, larger, next-generation, ground-based telescopes — such as the European Extremely Large Telescope — could help to overcome these challenges by searching for "transits," in which an exoplanet orbits in front of its star.
Another method that could prove useful for detecting these elusive exoplanets involves searching for stars with traces of unusual elements in their atmospheres that would indicate that the star has migrated away from the center of the galaxy, the researchers said in the statement.
Silicon-based life on Earth? Only artificially, so far — but maybe natural on other planets
Silicon-based life on Earth? Only artificially, so far — but maybe natural on other planets
Scientists have successfully nudged a strain of bacteria to create carbon-silicon bonds for the first time. Such research will help flesh out our understanding of silicon-based life — which doesn’t appear on Earth but could on other planets.
Quartz, or rock crystal, the second most abundant mineral in the Earth’s crust, is a mixture of (mostly) silicon and oxygen. The first most abundant mineral, feldspar, also contains (mostly) silicon. Image credits Stefan Schweihofer.
You may not think of it much, but silicon is actually really common here on good ole Earth — it’s the second most common element in our planet’s crust after oxygen. About nine-tenths of crustal rocks contain silicon in the form of silica or other silicates. The processor that’s allowing you to read ZME Science contains silicon — the glass panes on your windows, too. It’s so ubiquitous in our planet’s chemical makeup that a geologist can tell you which volcanoes will explode, and which would simply ‘flow’ on eruption, just by looking at how much silicon its magma contains. Sitting just one step away from carbon in the periodic table, silicon shares most of the properties that made carbon ideally suited for organic use.
Which makes the following point that much more curious: life as we know it simply isn’t that big on using silicon. It pops up here and there, in the tissues of certain plants or the shells of some marine organisms, but surprisingly little overall. Instead, Earthlings much prefer carbon.
Research from the California Institute of Technology, however, may put the element back on biology’s menu. The team successfully coaxed E.coli into producing a protein that can form carbon-silicon (C-Si) bonds. Their work sheds more light on why the latter element seems to be shunned by Earthly life, and where we might find organisms that don’t feel the same way.
Silly cons
The team started by engineering a strain of E. coli bacteria to produce a protein normally found in bacteria from Icelandic hot springs which can bind silicon to carbon. When the team first used their engineered strain to produce the protein in question, the compound proved to be very inefficient. Successive iterations and natural mutations, however, resulted in an enzyme that could forge organic silicon molecules some 15 times more efficiently than any chemical process the team could apply to the same goal. Using this molecule, the team produced twenty organic C-Si compounds, all of which proved to be stable.
So, by this step, they had proven that life can incorporate silicon — it’s just that it doesn’t particularly want to.
“You might argue, gosh, it’s so easy for a biological system to do it, how do you know it’s not being done out there?” says coauthor Frances Arnold. “We don’t really know, but it’s highly unlikely.”
Arnold was referring to other planets in this context, but the point he’s trying to make can also be applied to Earth. Do we know beyond a doubt that there isn’t silicon life on Earth? Well, no. But we have reasonable grounds to assume that there isn’t.
The issue here is a problem of availability. Silicon is much more common on Earth than carbon, but virtually all of it is extremely costly for life to access. Silicon is so prevalent in the crust because it’s a huge fan of oxygen, and it will bind with any available atom of the gas to form rocks. All of the silicon compounds that the team fed their bacteria to make these new compounds were manmade and life wouldn’t have any chance of finding them in the wild.
Carbon, on the other hand, is very stable chemically. Its relative lack of interest in hooking up with oxygen is especially useful for life, as it can use the atom to create huge molecules without much risk of them oxidizing and breaking apart. It also allows carbon to exist in a pure state (graphite for example) in nature, while silicon can’t — this is a very important distinction, as in molecular ‘economy’, this means carbon can be acquired at a much, much lower price (energy expenditure) than silicon. Finally, when you burn carbon you get a gas that can then be re-used by life; silicon lacks this perk.
But it can be quite shiny, as these silicon optic pieces showcase.
Image credits Crystaltechno / Wikimedia.
Finally, silicon-based life couldn’t use water as carbon-based life does; the two simply don’t have chemistry. Instead, it would have to substitute another liquid, such as methane, for the job — but that’s not stable under normal conditions on Earth, either.
In the end, the heart of the matter isn’t that silicon can’t be a foundation for life — it’s just that, on Earth, carbon can do the job much more easily, at greater efficiency, and at a lower cost. The ‘job’ here being life.
However, that’s not to say silicon-carbon bonds aren’t useful. We produce such compounds in the lab all the time and use them in products ranging from electronics to pharmaceuticals. The team hopes that their bacteria can help produce these substances much faster, much more cheaply, and with a lesser environmental footprint. It could also open the way to whole new materials.
“An enzyme can do what chemists thought only they could do,” Arnold says.“The chemical bond could appear in thousands and thousands of different molecules, some of which could be useful,”
“They’re all completely new chemical entities that are easily available now just by asking bacteria to make them.”
Silly life
Beyond the immediate practical considerations, the research also begs the question: is Earth-based silicon life feasible? The results showed, at the very least, that silicon isn’t harmful to life as we know it. Perhaps, if life had ready access to the element, it would incorporate it more in its structures and processes, despite its limitations.
And that invites the question of whether life can be made to incorporate elements that we’ve never seen it use before.
“What happens when you incorporate other elements?” Arnold asks. “Can nature even do that?”
“Presumably we could make components of life that incorporate silicon—maybe silicon fat or silicon-containing proteins—and ask, what does life do with that? Is the cell blind to whether carbon is there or silicon is there? Does the cell just spit it out? Does the cell eat it? Does it provide new functions that life didn’t have before?”
“I’d like to see what fraction of things that chemists have figured out we could actually teach nature to do. Then we really could replace chemical factories with bacteria.”
One particularly well-suited solution to the limitations of silicon on our Earth is to move the context to another planet. Any seasoned lover of sci-fi, and I proudly count myself among their number, has run into the idea of silicon-based aliens at least once. For now, the “alien life” part remains in the domain of fantasy, but the chemistry behind that idea is very firmly lodged in the domain of science. For example Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, sports a chilly average temperature of -179° Celsius (-290° Fahrenheit), very little oxygen (that’s locked in water ice), and an abundance of methane rivers and lakes.
[Read Further] Yes that’s weird, but the weather gets even weirder on other planets — even simple rain.
In this context, silicon would be much better suited as a biochemical base for life than carbon. In what is perhaps a sprinkling of cosmic irony, however, Titan sports a lot of carbon (even more than Earth), but precious little silicon — and most of it is buried deep, near the moon’s core. But it goes to show that there are worlds out there where silicon is the way to go, not carbon. Overall our chances of finding silicon-based life, or life that incorporates silicon, are pretty slim. And that, again, comes down to the fact that carbon is the more stable of the lot. In the grand scheme of things, there can be silicon life out there — but it will probably be pretty rare.
Still, for now, research into C-Si bonds could usher in a new method of cheaply producing what, today, are relatively pricey compounds. And organic silicon compounds could have very valuable uses in medicine and other applications. So, while we look and pine for silicon-based life out in the universe, we stand to gain a lot from studying it on Earth.
The paper “Directed evolution of cytochrome c for carbon–silicon bond formation: Bringing silicon to life” has been published in the journal Science.
The moon could have formed from a seething, spinning cloud of vaporized rock, which scientists call a ‘synestia’. Scientists at the University of California, Davis and Harvard University claim that this novel lunar formation model ties several loose ends that competing and more established formation theories could not resolve.
This artist’s rendering shows the hot, molten Moon emerging from a synestia, a giant spinning donut of vaporized rock that formed when planet-sized objects collided.
Credit: Sarah Stewart/UC Davis based on NASA rendering.
According to the mainstream lunar formation theory, early in our planet history, Earth collided with a Mars-sized object called Theia. The highly energetic collision threw molten rock and metal into orbit which eventually coalesced, forming the moon. For more than 20 years, this has been the canonical model for the formation of the moon and modern planet Earth. But, compelling as it may be, this model is likely wrong, according to Simon Lock, a graduate student at Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Modern analyses show that both the Earth and the moon have nearly the same isotopic “fingerprint”, suggesting they both formed from an identical source. What’s more, trajectory models suggest that there’s a very narrow range of collisions that might be able to get enough mass into orbit. “There’s only a couple of degree window of impact angles and a very narrow range of sizes…and even then some impacts still don’t work,” Lock said in a statement.
“Our model explains, for the first time, how the Moon acquired its distinct composition. The Moon has a very similar composition to Earth in the major rock-forming elements (e.g., Al, Mg, Si) but depleted in elements that are more easily vaporized. Because the Moon formed within the synestia, surrounded by hot vapor, it inherited its composition from Earth but only retained the elements that are more difficult to vaporize. The more volatile elements remained in the vapor of the synestia. When the synestia cooled and contracted inside the Moon’s orbit, it took all the more volatile elements with it. We have shown that the pressures and temperatures at which the Moon would have formed inside the synestia would give it a composition similar to that observed in our Moon. Ours is the first model to be able to quantitatively explain the Moon’s composition,” Lock told ZME Science.
“Our model can also help explain why Earth and the Moon appear to have formed from the same material and why our Moon is so big,” he added.
Lock, along with colleagues from Harvard and UC Davis, have devised a new model that is better able to account for these inconsistencies. It relies on a new type of planetary object called synestia — a rapidly spinning mass of molten and vaporized rock, with some matter belonging to the body in orbit around itself. The whole thing looks a lot like a giant planetary-sized donut made of vaporized rock. “Synestia” comes from “syn-,” “together” and “Hestia,” Greek goddess of architecture and structures.
The term “synestia” was coined by Lock and Sarah Stewart, who is professor of planetary science at the University of California, Davis. Both researchers are academically focused on studying what happens when planet-sized objects smash into each other. Particularly, the two are interested in what happens during the collisions of massive spinning objects.
Any rotating object has an angular momentum which needs to stay conserved. The law of conservation of angular momentum states that when no external torque acts on an object, no change of angular momentum will occur. If the net torque is zero, then angular momentum is constant or conserved.
It’s the conservation of angular momentum that can explain why an ice skater can increase the angular acceleration by bringing his or her arms and legs close to the vertical axis of rotation. Because the moment is conserved, when the skater decreases rotational inertia, the rotation rate must increase. Ultimately, the skater’s angular momentum is the same. And when two ice skaters catch ahold of each other, the angular momentum of each skater adds up — again, per the law of conservation of angular momentum, the summed angular momentum must remain the same. As a nice bit of trivia, it’s because of this law that the solar system is flat.
Now, imagine what happens when your two skaters are actually two planets that crash into each other. When Lock and Stewart modeled what happened to Earth-sized rocky planets after a collision with other large objects over a range of high temperatures and high angular momentum, they found this completely new planetary structure.
“The main challenge in this research was breaking our preconceptions about what the aftermath of giant impacts should look like. Two of the most significant ‘Eureka’ moments were that the realization that impacts were creating a very different type of planetary structure, synestias, and that the synestia was so large that the Moon would be forming inside the vapor of the synestia,” Lock told ZME Science.
Out of the Earth-synestia, chunks of molten rock which were injected into orbit following the impact formed the seed for the moon. Synestias likely don’t last long — not more than a couple hundred years — because they can’t sustain their heat for too long, and shrink rapidly, finally collapsing into a molten planet. And while the Earth-synestia gradually shrank, vaporized silicate rock rained into the proto-moon, which explains how the moon inherited its composition from Earth. At the same time, because it formed at high temperatures (4,000-6,000°F), the moon lost the easily vaporized elements which is why the moon also has a distinct composition.
The synestia model answers many long-standing questions about Earth’s and the moon’s formation, but this work is still in its infancy. Much more work must be completed to refine the model further. For instance, scientists would like to know how the vapor that formed the moon flowed and behaved in more detail.
“The study of forming Moon-formation from a synestia is still in the preliminary stages. We have shown that each of the steps to form the Moon from the synestia are feasible, but there is a lot more detailed interrogation of each of these steps yet to do. Also, by better constraining the chemical and isotopic composition of Earth and the Moon, we can find new tests of our model to see whether it truly can produce a Moon that looks like our own,” Lock said.
“It may be possible to observe synestias in upcoming exoplanet surveys, but the lifetime of terrestrial synestias is so short and the possibility of observing one is quite low,” he added about the possibility of witnessing a synestia in the making.
“Forming the Moon within the vaporized Earth is a fundamentally new environment for Moon formation. This model changes the emphasize of the study of Moon formation from a particular impact to the properties of the synestia produced by the impact. There are a range of very different impacts that could have formed our Moon.”
If you’d like to learn more about the synestia moon formation model, Lock made a website explaining it in great detail. You’re welcome to check it out.
Scientific reference: Simon J. Lock et al. The origin of the Moon within a terrestrial synestia, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2018). DOI: 10.1002/2017je005333. <
PENTAGON UFO BOMBSHELL: Former defence minister claims US IS storing 'ALIEN UFO parts'
PENTAGON UFO BOMBSHELL: Former defence minister claims US IS storing 'ALIEN UFO parts'
A FORMER minister of defence has sensationally claimed the remains of recovered alien technology are being secretly stored away from public view and claims the US has weapons to bring down UFOs. Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian Minister of Defence alleges the US Government has been in contact with extraterrestrials for years, and claims Washington has obtained flying saucer technology, but has covered it up.
Paul Hellyer is convinced aliens are being hidden from the public.
His bombshell claims come just weeks after it emerged the US Pentagon had a top-secret UFO investigation team from 2007 to 2012, that allegedly obtained "materials from UFOs".
In December, a New York Times article revealed details of a top-secret £16 million US Pentagon study into the potential threat posed by UFOs.
The report claimed the Department of Defense (DoD) Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme (AATIP) even recovered "unknown alloys" believed to have come from a UFO that had been tested and found to have properties unknown to science.
Mr Hellyer, who was a minister in the 1960s, believes top secret departments have been harvesting technology from the advanced lifeforms to develop hi-tech weaponry and aircraft, Dailystar.co.uk reports
They’ve been working on technology that they got from the aliens and not only that but the particle guns based on the work of Tesla and others.
Paul Hellyer
In a recent Lazarus Effect YouTube podcast he claimed some of this groundbreaking knowledge had “most certainly” been shared with the UK.
A former US Air Force Charles James Hall, who has written about his alleged encounters with aliens at a Nevada base, reportedly told Mr Hellyer they had a hangar for a “mother ship that came into the side of a mountain on the nights of the full moon”.
Mr Hall claims the air force, back in the 1960s, had already been exchanging technological information with “tall whites”, an alleged blonde-haired human-like race of aliens, according to Hellyer.
In the podcast, Mr Hellyer, 93, said: “If the US was that far advanced in the exchange of technology in the 1960s where are they today?”
“They’ve been working on technology that they got from the aliens and not only that but the particle guns based on the work of Tesla and others.
“That is the primary purpose of the anti ballistic missile shield, the weapons are ones that can be aimed in either direction to control the situation on earth but equally, if not more important, to shoot down UFOs.
“I do believe they have developed two or three kinds of weapons that are capable of disabling and bringing down UFOs.”
Mr Hellyer has remained in Canadian politics throughout his career and is the longest serving current member of the country’s Privy Council.
His theory claims that four species of aliens have been visiting Earth for thousands of years.
Mr Hellyer is not alone in this thinking, with many so-called alien disclosure campaigners claiming the alien cover up has been in place since the alleged Roswell UFO crash of 1947.
Conspiracy theorists claim that a UFO was found crashed outside the New Mexico town and the remains of it have been hidden away ever since.
Since news broke of the AATIP broke there have been calls for the metal and any reports on it to be produced, but so far nothing has materialised.
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Grootste vliegtuig ter wereld is breder dan een voetbalveld - HLN.be
Grootste vliegtuig ter wereld is breder dan een voetbalveld - HLN.be
Strato launchHet grootste vliegtuig heeft een spanwijdte van maar liefst 117 meter.
WETENSCHAP & PLANEETAl bijna zeven jaar werkt Microsoft-medeoprichter Paul Allen aan een gigantisch vliegtuig waarmee hij raketten de ruimte in wil sturen. Na enkele succesvolle stuur- en remtests op het tarmac is de Stratolaunch weer een stapje dichter bij zijn eerste vlucht.
Het is haast een surrealistisch beeld, het vliegtuig met twee rompen en een lange rechte vleugel in het midden van de Californische woestijn. De Stratolaunch, met een spanwijdte van maar liefst 117 meter, wordt het grootste vliegtuig ter wereld. De 28 wielen moeten meer dan 590 ton (het gewicht wanneer het vliegtuig geladen is) dragen, terwijl zes Boeing 747-vliegtuigmotoren al dat gewicht de lucht in moeten krijgen.
Het kolossale gevaarte vliegt tot een hoogte van zo’n 11 kilometer. Daar wordt de raket met satelliet afgevuurd naar een lage baan om de Aarde. Paul Allen hoopt met het vliegtuig de kostprijs van zo’n lancering stevig te drukken, want voor het afschieten van dergelijke raket vanaf een lanceerplatform op de grond is veel brandstof - en dus veel geld - nodig.
Stratolaunch Systems
Een bedrijf tekende in anderhalf jaar geleden al een contract met Stratolaunch Systems. Met het vliegtuig van Allens bedrijf wil Orbital ATK zijn Pegasus XL, dat gebruikt wordt om kleine satellieten te vervoeren, naar de ruimte brengen.
Mijlpaal
Maar daar is het dus nog even op wachten: de Stratolauch moet nog uitgebreid getest worden. Het van zijn stellingen halen en naar buiten rollen was alvast een eerste mijlpaal. Gisteren werden de motoren getest. Oorspronkelijk waren de eerste testvluchten al voorzien voor 2016 en 2017, maar zoals dat met projecten van zo’n omvang gaat, werden die al uitgesteld naar volgend jaar. Dan kan het paradepaardje met vleugels groter dan een voetbalveld eindelijk de lucht in.
Droom
Paul Allen, volgens Forbes een van de rijkste mensen ter wereld, beschreef in zijn memoires Idea Man al hoe hij als kind geobsedeerd was door de ruimtevaart. Hij droomde van het ontwerpen van raketten die Mars zouden verkennen. “Andere interesses kwamen en gingen, maar mijn obsessie met raketten is gebleven”, schreef hij. “Na Apollo legde NASA de nadruk op onbemande raketten. De ruimtevaart verloor zijn stempel, maar nooit mijn interesse.”
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US Fighter Jets And A UFO Apparently In A Dogfight Over Lincoln County, Nevada
US Fighter Jets And A UFO Apparently In A Dogfight Over Lincoln County, Nevada
Two planes and a third object were captured on photos silhouetted against the sky above a patch of desert in Lincoln County, Nevada. Many believe that the dramatic photos show US fighter jets battling a UFO over Area 51, an alleged top-secret alien site.
UFO researchers Tim Doyle and Tracey Su captured the photos while they were camping out 12 miles from the military base.
They claimed that they spotted the two fighters soaring above and they decided to take pictures. Then a third shape appeared when they looked back at the images later.
The pair believed the trio were involved in a plane dogfight.
Tim described the UFO as similar to a triangular unmanned drone because it was probably too small to have a person inside it.
Tim added that it definitely looked as though the three crafts are interacting with each other.
The US Air Force base, located approximately 80 miles from Las Vegas, is thought to be the home of experimental aircraft development and testing.
The CIA only acknowledge its existence after a Freedom of Information request in 2013.
Many conspiracy theorists claim the highly secretive facility has been used for reverse engineering of a crashed alien spacecraft at Roswell in 1947.
Mysterious Lights appear in the Sky over Milwaukee - FOX6 News
Mysterious Lights appear in the Sky over Milwaukee - FOX6 News
On Tuesday morning, February 27, 2018 strange moving lights appeared over Milwaukee and were captured live on TV from FOX6.
They quickly explained that it was just a huge flock of seagulls but not everyone is convinced because a few days earlier another mysterious light fell from the sky over Milwaukee and they believe that both events are connected to each other.
Elisabeth Zillinskas who recorded the bright light over Milwaukee on February 24, 2018 states that she has no idea what exactly fell from the sky, it is a complete mystery.
Filer’s Files #8 – 2018 Portals Are Opening - PART I
Photos taken on February 12, 2018 at Hurricane Cane Lodge, Washington
Filer’s Files #8 – 2018 Portals Are Opening - PART I
February 25, 2018
In special reports, this week’s files cover: Bigelow Aerospace Director “Cannot Comment” On What They Do With UFO Reports, Scientist Admits Portals Are Opening Around Earth, Nobel Prize awarded to Gravity LIGO Founders, Unusual u.s. Aerial Observations During World War Ii, DNA Tests Indicate Elongated Skulls from Alien Race, Geodesic Dome ET Painting, Indian Hieroglyphics, and Mexican Drug Traffickers Use a Drug 50 Times More Powerful Than Heroin
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Massachusetts New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington.
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena sightings were reported over Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, France, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and England in the United Kingdom.
The Filer Research Institute feels the scientific study of UFOs is for the benefit of humankind and is an important endeavor. The US Air Force investigated UFOs publicly for more than twenty years under Project Blue Book; and I continue this advanced research. I believe the God of the universe has spread life throughout the cosmos and UFO’s are visiting us in ever-increasing numbers. will be in Mt Shasta this summer and wish to encourage people to come and see this conference.
Join us at the conference
George A. Filer III
New Jersey State Director
MUFON Eastern Region Director
Www.nationalUFOcenter.com. Now receiving 3 million hits a month
Forward these files to your friends and neighbors.
Special Projects
Bigelow Aerospace Director “Cannot Comment”
On What They Do With UFO Reports
Mike Gold – Former Director of Operations for Bigelow Aerospace was asked about Bigelow’s involvement with UFO reports. He gives an interesting answer with some interesting expressions on his face. He mentions how he finds the subject matter very interesting. He also mentions the recent congressional hearing held regarding Earth like planets that are probably teeming with life. He mentions he cannot comment on what Bigelow Aerospace does with UFO reports. He goes on to state how he is glad that somebody is taking the reports because these are important issues that deserve serious attention. (It appears Bigelow Aviation provides data to the government and allegedly is rewarded with UFO crash debris.
Bigelow Aerospace is a space technology company that is known for its work on expandable space station modules. They are now working on space habitats for space agencies and corporate clients. They have a long history of working for NASA.
Earlier this month the Founder of Bigelow Aerospace, Robert Bigelow, announced that he is planning a real estate empire in outer space.
The Federal Aviation Administration refers its UFO reports to BAASS. Which stands for Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. Robert Bigelow mentions how UFO sightings led him to his interest in space. Bigelow Aerospace has spun off a new commercial space company called Bigelow Space Operations (BSO), which will act as the sales, operations, and provider for the inflatable space stations he’s developing. According to Bigelow, these stations will be the largest, most complex structures ever built for human habitation in space. Arjun Walia
The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS)
The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS), now defunct has catalogued the Triangle sightings, sifting through and combining databases to take a hard look at the mystery craft. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, NIDS was privately funded by Robert Bigelow science institute with a strong research focusing on aerial phenomena.
Correction: It was stated in last in weeks Filer’s Files 7 in“The Great UFO Deception” article stated, Bigelow paid Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center for the triangle information contained in the NIDs report. Peter Davenport says, although he was asked to be part of NIDs and refused, he was never paid in any way for the data on Peter’s National UFO Reporting Center.web site.
I spoke at length with Peter and he indicated the triangle reports are increasing in recent months and they do not show standard aircraft lighting that all military and commercial aircraft display as required by law.
Scientist Admits Portals Are Opening Around Earth
– Proof that Project Pegasus is Real?
Stargate Portal
Many people believe the Universe can be explored in almost a blink of an eye, using energetic portals and our consciousness. Portals are defined as a door, gate, or entrance, especially one of imposing appearance, as to a worm hole into space or another dimension.
Allegedly, the Ancients knew about these means of traveling to other Star Systems, but also to the inner Earth using crystals, pyramids, and other earthen structures aligned with the ley lines of our planet. Fantasy literature is full of symbolism referring to portals that allowed the passage to inconceivable worlds. Many researchers feel ET is not arriving from planets millions of miles away but from another dimension that exits parallel to his one.
The plot of Stargate SG-1 TV picks up a year after the conclusion of the events recounted in the original feature film. It follows the present-day adventures of SG-1, a military team from Earth. SG-1 and a dozen other SG teams venture to distant planets using an alien portal known as a Stargate, which in the series is housed in a top-secret United States Air Force military base known as Stargate Command (SGC) in the underground Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In the first eight seasons, the mission of the SG teams is to explore the galaxy and search for alien technology and allies to defend Earth against the Goa’uld, a snake-like parasitic alien race that takes humans as unwilling hosts. The premise of the series may be closer to reality than generally beloved.
Within this scheme we can look at the work of a NASA scientist who disclosed that every day, portals open and close every day. Such gateways can be found within Earth’s magnetic field, falling in a direct line to the Sun’s atmosphere 93 million miles away. NASA hasn’t tagged them as portals, instead opting to call them Boom Tubes, electron diffusion regions or ‘X’ points, their existence being due to magnetic resonance. It’s truly a shame “real” scientists are paid to dismiss their presence in our scope.
Jack Scudder, a NASA plasma physicist from the University of Iowa, refers to X-points as:
“Places where the magnetic field of Earth connects to the magnetic field of the Sun. These portals can be elusive, however, so if one were to imagine utilizing them for space travel, they would have to be an expert in space geography and mathematics to time them correctly.”
Laura Magdalene Eisenhower the great-granddaughter of Dwight David Eisenhower, and Andrew D. Basiago claim they were Independent Mars colony recruits. They claim the existence of a secret human survival colony on Mars. They were former active members of DARPA’s Project Pegasus (1968-1972), claiming that the government had successfully achieved Tesla-based quantum teleportation and time travel in the time-space hologram, initiating the U.S. program of time-space travel called “Chrononauts”.
Since the 1970s, the military has been crossing worlds, and for more than 10 years, Basiago has been spreading the word about portal-based time travel, similar to the “Stargate” TV series. The military could travel ahead in time and location to delete people who would pose a risk to the government such as North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
Attorney Andrew Basiago
Not only did Basiago talk about time travel, but he also claims that the CIA has a program named Mars-jump-room which grants our military units the ability to build their own bases on Mars. He claims he has worked with some of the physicists leaders in quantum physics. According to Basiago, he was engaged in two – allegedly – secret military programs. He claims he was one of the great deal of American children chosen to take part in experiments involving time travel. His reports on his experiences are determined based on logic alone and it is hard to disregard his tales as being sheer fantasy. It is, by all means, for the best that the US military keeps this kind of technologies secret, since they can be turned into weapons. This is no secret, ever since Rumsfeld has declared that one of the advantages of research done within Project Pegasus is the capacity to use teleportation in order to deliver troops to the proper place on the battlefield.
“Radiant energy is a form of energy that Tesla discovered that is latent and pervasive in the universe and has among its properties the capacity to bend time-space.”
– Andrew Basiago
While passing through this veil of energy, Vancouver, Washington lawyer Basiago would enter a “vortal tunnel” that would send him to his destination. The other teleportation devices included a “plasma confinement chamber” in New Jersey and a “jump room” in El Segundo, California. There was also some kind of “holographic technology,” that allowed them to travel “both physically and virtually in time and location.”
However advanced, this unconventional transportation process had its pitfalls. Basiago’s admission is controversial, to say the least. The technology he describes could solve a lot of mankind’s problems, but it could destroy us just as well. Collectively, we don’t even know what time is, why it is or why it flows the way it does. The human mind finds it hard to wrap around concepts like time travel and the paradoxical consequences of altering past timelines. But then again, there is nothing in Einstein’s General Relativity that can sink the notion of time travel. http://www.ewao.com/
Nobel Prize awarded to Gravity LIGO Founders
The LIGO Laboratory, comprising LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Caltech, and MIT are excited to announce that LIGO’s three longest-standing and greatest champions have been awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics: Barry Barish and Kip Thorne of Caltech and Rainer Weiss of MIT.
The Nobel Committee in Stockholm Sweden announcement the winners of the Nobel prizes. The very ideafor LIGO came to Rainer Weiss in the early 1970’s when, as associate professor of physics at MIT, he had to find a way to explain gravitational waves (a prediction of general relativity) to his students.
In an interview with MIT news writer, Jennifer Chu, Weiss recalled his revelation: “That was my quandary at the time, and that’s when the invention was made. I said, ‘What’s the simplest thing I can think of to show these students that you could detect the influence of a gravitational wave? … The obvious thing to me was, let’s take freely floating masses in space and measure the time it takes light to travel between them. The presence of a gravitational wave would change that time. [Later] knowing what you could do with lasers, I worked it out: Could you actually detect gravitational waves this way? And I came to the conclusion that yes, you could detect gravitational waves…”
Sometime later, in 1972, Weiss carefully thought through and wrote down his idea, subsequently publishing it as a paper titled, “Electromagnetically Coupled Broadband Gravitational Antenna” . In this paper, Weiss described in great detail, the design and promise of using laser interferometry to detect gravitational waves. Within its 22 pages, the paper laid out the blueprint for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (at the time, Weiss called it an antenna.)
Rainer Weiss’ original design for a Laser Gravitational Wave “antenna” (Copyright. R. Weiss (1972). “Electromagnetically Coupled Broadband Gravitational Antenna”. Quarterly Progress Report, Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT. 105: 54.)
Today, no one disputes the fact that LIGO owes its very existence to Rainer Weiss.
Transforming LIGO from concept to reality, however, would take another 20 years.. In 1975, a fateful meeting between Weiss and Kip Thorne of Caltech would set into motion the development of one of the most complicated and risky scientific experiments ever conceived. Thorne, commanded a level of respect among peers, colleagues, research groups, and funding agencies that was unequalled. As much as Rai is responsible for conceiving of LIGO, Kip Thorne is equally responsible for convincing countless others of LIGO’s potential for success. As a result of his interactions with Weiss, Thorne convinced Caltech to create a gravitational-wave research group.
Thus was formed the LIGO triumvirate. In 1989, Weiss and Thorne, along with Ron Drever, Fred Raab, and Robbie Vogt, submitted a proposal for LIGO to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) which has enthusiastically supported this effort from the start. In 1994 construction began on the twin LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana.
That’s when Barry Barish joined the trio. Barish became LIGO Principal Investigator in 1994, helping the growing cadre move from a small intensely focused group cooking up basic ideas to a large and broad team that could actually deliver the Observatories and hardware. His insights led not only to construction of the Observatories and the initial detectors, but also to the creation of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and to the successful proposal to build Advanced LIGO—the instrument that would finally make the first detection. Barry was the perfect complement to Kip and Rai to bring LIGO to success.
Another 21 years would pass before the efforts of Rai Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish finally paid off. On September 14, 2015, LIGO detected the gossamer flutters of spacetime created by the merging of two massive black holes some 1.3 billion light years away. Nearly half-a-century after its conception, LIGO had fulfilled its destiny.
Structure is able to detect gravitational waves.
So, while this Nobel Prize is being awarded barely two years after LIGO’s historic detection, it acknowledges 45 years of effort: from conception, through design, planning, testing and prototyping, through decades of research and engineering, invention and innovation, advances in computing, lasers, and optics, and especially the championing and advocating of three remarkable men: Barry Barish, Kip Thorne, and Rai Weiss. There can be no doubt; their recognition by the Nobel Committee is well earned. It is apparent UFOs over come gravity now we have proof of gravity waves.
Unusual U.S. Aerial Observations During World War II
UFOs had become a distinct topic of discussion beginning in 1947. Prior to that time the phenomena didn’t have a particular title, so that observations of peculiar aerial objects fell into no organized category, other than being interesting recollections with most often no permanent record kept.
South Pacific Flying Disk in US Hangar
This is a story told me by a coworker at Boeing in the late eighties. He was stationed in the South Pacific near the end of World War II, a marine guard at an airfield on a South Pacific Island on June 15,1945. He was assigned to guard the airfield and one night his commanding officer told him the field lights would go out sometime in the night and when that happened he was to turn his back to one of the hangars, and was not to look, nor turn around until the lights went back on. As he was told, later that night the field lights went out. His curiosity overcame him, and he looked toward the hangar as the hangar doors opened, and a disk flew slowly in. At that point the hangar doors were closed, and the field lights came back on. The process was reversed several nights later, the field lights went off, the hangar doors opened, the disk flew off, the field lights came back on, and he never saw it again. ((NUFORC Note: We cannot confirm this report. However, we have received many of alleged sightings during the Second World War, and many from the 1940’s. PD)) Depiction of UFO. Ufo Historical Revue – Issue #1 – June 1998
DNA Tests Indicate Elongated Skulls from Alien Race
DNA test results on the elongated skulls discovered in Peru have been released by a researcher investigating if the bones could belong to an alien race. The 3,000-year old Paracas skulls, with elongated craniums, have long been held up by UFO hunters as evidence of ancient alien visitations due to their extraordinarily huge foreheads.
The long skulled people also are found in England and had their capital at Stonehenge and were the first to lay down the ley system as their monuments are the oldest and set the locations for the leys and ley systems. Perhaps with larger brain capacity they sensed and perceived the land differently to you and I.
The other picture is from NASA showing the skull or a sculptured rock from Mars that suggests Martians or other aliens had elongated skulls. Some areas of Mars have pyramids and Pharaoh like statues. The entire Stonehenge area has the exceptional people with elongated skulls that may have come from Mars or some other planets. They built Silbury Hill the largest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe called the “Hill of the Shining Beings, We know that Mars atmosphere and water diminished with some type of catastrophe and that gravity there is only one sixth of Earths
Some of the persons with elongated skulls were buried in the West Kennet Long Barrow a Neolithic tomb, about 3600 BC, which is some 400 years before the first stage Stonehenge
UFOs and strange phenomena are frequently reported in the area. Some people claim Wiltshire is a portal where craft from other planets arrive.
Silbury Hill and Stonehenge, barrows and Cursus were skillfully crafted by our ancient ancestors. The prehistoric architects of ancient sites were acutely aware of the Earth’s magnetic energies, which they carefully integrated into the foundation plans of their monuments. At Stonehenge, for example, certain megaliths, such as the Altar Stone, were positioned above a geometric earth energy pattern, known as geospiral, to harness the earth force, which perpetually charged the stone with magnetic energy. “Looking through the viewfinder of digital cameras – vertical columns of rose colored light rising up from the ground. There is quite a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that extraterrestrial civilizations choose to enter our world at specific planetary locations. These are either on ley-lines or on fault lines where the earth’s electromagnetic field is stronger or weaker than in the surrounding area.”
Geodesic DomeET Painting
Letter from Dan Johnson – The painting is of a geodesic dome similar to the famous California Integratron. This geodesic dome is in Black Mountain, NC and is at the home of Jim Goure, who has since passed, Jim was very active in 1970s UFO research when I met him. He was also connected to and was at Walter Russell’s death bed when Walter died on his birthday in 1963. It’s coincidental that Walter Russell and Nicola Tesla knew each other and were in contact with one another.
This picture is a painting that hung prominently on Jim’s wall at his home in Black Mountain. It depicts, I believe, a controversial and large Jesus, and Mary Magdalene standing on the dome. Notice what Jesus has in his right hand. It looks remarkably like a G.E.M. Sphere that Judy Beebe Re-created through Nicola Tesla’s inspiration in 2002 or so, many years after Nicola’s death. Also, the mere size of the figures reminds me of the nearly 85 foot beings that I have seen in my back yard in the Virginia, Mountains. More people are seeing these Beings besides myself. Some have seen as many as 60 or 70 beings.
They’re even showing up in our front yard and all around the Monroe Institute property. These Beings are very tall, in other dimensions and are translucent, like the painting. Was the artist and Jim Goure possibly showing Jesus as being ET in nature? It all makes one think doesn’t it? Also, many orbs are showing up which is how I believe these Beings and ETs are traveling from other worldly places and dimensions. Thanks to Dan Johnson
Indian Hieroglyphics
While exploring Utah’s Sego Canyon with his father and admiring the Native American artwork found at the site.
C2C listener Curtis couldn’t help but notice this rather jaw-dropping pictograph which one could almost image being the depiction of some kind of space-faring people.
Could be an indication that ancient astronauts once visited the location?
Mexican Drug Traffickers Use a Drug 50 Times More Powerful Than Heroin
A middle-aged couple had just arrived in the United States from Mexico had dinner at an IHop and returned home only to be arrested. US anti-narcotics agents, with a search warrant in hand, entered the apartment located in Queens. Inside one of the many suitcases the couple had arrived in the United States with, the officers found drugs, but not “the usual ones.”
It was pure fentanyl, a synthetic and extremely dangerous opioid, 50 times more powerful than heroin according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which indicate that more than 60,000 people died from overdoses in the United States last year. The couple owned 141 pounds, almost 64 kilos, of that substance. It was the largest fentanyl seizure in the history of the United States.
According to the Drug Control Administration (DEA), in those 64 kilos there was enough of the drug to kill 32 million people. Rogelio Alvarado Robles, 55, and Blanca Flores Solis, 52, were arrested. And although they had no criminal record, they were both drug runners to negotiate the sale of tens of millions of dollars in narcotics. To the DEA, the Mexican drug cartels seek to turn New York into their distribution center.
In 2017, the DEA seized more than 350 pounds, of pure fentanyl in New York City, 10 times more than in 2016. Fentanyl seems better than heroin for trafficking because of its various advantages. First because it is Its manufactured cheaply in Mexico much more profitable. It does not have to be grown such as poppy, heroin base plant, this, like methamphetamine, can be manufactured in clandestine laboratories using relatively inexpensive chemicals.
Not to mention that its potency makes it able to be diluted to exponentially increase the doses at street level, either in the form of powder or alternative pills pressed to look like brands such as OxyContin and Percoset. For James Hunt, head of the New York Division of the DEA, the way in which this drug is distributed in the city is also different.
Many of the 64,000 killed by Mexican drugs are found with a syringe still in their arms.
The drug traffickers become “evil businessmen”, who invest 3 thousand dollars and earn millions of dollars. “They are smart,” says Jimmy Arroyo, a special agent of the DEA that leads the team that in recent months has made several important arrests related to Mexican traffickers. “They know that if they shoot people, they will attract attention.”
The criminal organization responsible for bringing fentanyl to the United States is the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel .According to the DEA, 80% of the fentanyl seized in the New York area is related to the Sinaloan drug lords.
National Assessment on the Threat of Drugs, claims the Sinaloa Cartel has one with the largest presence in the United States even its former leader, Joaquín Guzmán Loera “El Chapo ” is incarcerated in a Manhattan prison. So perhaps the defense of the criminal boss can be financed with the billions of profits made with the sales of fentanyl made only a few meters from his cell. President Donald Trump declared that opiate addiction was a public health emergency. For his part, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has defined fentanyl as “the number one killer drug in the United States. Thanks The Washington Post Borderland Beat Reporter El Profe
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Filer’s Files #8 – 2018 Portals Are Opening - PART II
Filer’s Files #8 – 2018 Portals Are Opening - PART II
UFO Sightings in the United States
Arizona Lights
Fountain Hills — While on vacation in the Phoenix area in March 8, 2014 at 4:40pm my girlfriend was taking random pictures of homes. I had watched a documentary on the Phoenix Lights and noticed six white spots in a slight V pattern in the sky in her photo. Comparing the photo she took to the Phoenix Lights we noticed similarities. We have no idea what is in the picture, but it is quite obviously something. I have examined this photo many times an am no further ahead in explaining it.
I should have sent this to you sooner, but I wasn’t aware of your organization and only found out from a friend while telling this story. The photo was taken on a Samsung G3 cell phone with no filter. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Arkansas Lights
Mena — The following describes an initial Light Event witnessed on February 18, 2017, reported to MUFON by phone, and was investigated by MUFON’s Special Assignment Team (SAT). Due to the fact that this location, Board Camp Crystal Mine, near Mena, Arkansas, has been the site of ongoing phenomenon and investigation since the February 18, 2017, this event was not publicly reported online until now. The reporting parties are the property owners and/or witnesses of numerous events are reporting for the benefit of public education and scientific research. On the night of February 18, 2017, at the property known as Board Camp Crystal Mine, , the 3 eye-witnesses were standing on a hill gazing out over the crystal mine property. About 10 pm, about 900 feet away the witnesses saw a glow of white light appear at the treetops of the horizon silhouetting the treetops from behind. Three large white vertical beams of light appeared out of the glow, seeming to be 30 feet wide and seeming to shoot up to about 300 feet high above the ground. The beams were described as being flat across the top, and appeared for 10 seconds, then disappeared. There were no lights at ground level and no sound of a vehicle or animals. Three large floodlights could have made the lighting but no equipment was noticed. The next morning, the 3 witnesses visited the crystal mine but, there was no evidence of a human visitation, but all metal objects such as fence posts and tools were noticed to be affected, characterized by movement of the objects from their previous positions.
MUFON was contacted and the witnesses were phoned by Arkansas state investigator Race Hobbs. Because of the credibility of the witnesses and the strong physical evidence left behind after the Light Event occurred, MUFON sent the SAT to investigate, led by Chase Kloetzke. Race Hobbs accompanied the SAT. During the SAT’s examination of the metal objects with various devices recording readings for radiation and electromagnetism (EM), it was confirmed that the metal objects at the Event Site were not only magnetized but also polarized, and EM and radiation levels were increased. Thanks to MUFON CMS
California Object
San Jose— Saw a flying disc in sky on February 16, 2018.
They changed direction, changed colors, got video and stills.
First thought in orbit, they followed Orion’s Belt 25-40 degrees left, 40-50 degrees up from street.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
RanchoSanta Margarita — We had just finished playing tennis at 11am on February 18, 2018, when one of the players looked up and said “What is that?”
We observed the object for about 5-10 minutes. At first I thought it was silver balloons, but they weren’t gaining altitude or being moved by the wind. And then, based on height and distance from us, it seemed too big to be balloons.
It reminded us of this, but we couldn’t see the movement caught in this video because of distance.
The photo was taken from their video, but very much reminds us what we saw. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Florida Lights
LeHigh Acres— I was outside taking a picture to send to my brother during the Christmas holidays on December 2, 2017.
That’s when I noticed the object after the picture was taken. I then looked in the sky and nothing was there.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Davenport — My girlfriend and I were returning home from a friend’s a few blocks away on January 1, 2018
It was now New Year’s morning and we noticed the object right away. It was in the sky even after we returned home and looked out the back door to the yard it was still there. It was the largest craft I’d ever seen. And I’ve seen a few. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Massachusetts Object
Maisen— I was taking pictures of the heavy spraying of chemtrails and I noticed what I thought was a spec on my phone’s screen on February 20, 2018
Upon further review it’s obviously some type of a craft. It was never visible to my naked eye, I looked right up after I noticed it on the camera and there was nothing in that part of the sky.
I never saw it except on my picture. If you look at it closely there is some type of an aura around it. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Jersey Chemtrails
Toms River — I was sitting on the couch watching TV on February 7, 2018 at 16:30 and noticed a lot of planes putting out abnormal chemtrails criss crossing in about 6 to 9 lines. Two even made a cross in the sky. I started to take some photos, and then sat back down. I kept looking to the sky’s outside of my friends window when to my amassment I saw a strange black object fly in a straight line amidst the chemtrails fading in the sky. Two days later sitting in my car February 9, 2018, waiting for my girlfriend while watching planes put down more chemtrails, I saw two bright none flashing orbs That is three different sightings within three days, Thank you David Thompson.
North Carolina Light
Carolina Beach –On February 6th, 2018, at 10 pm, I was at the beach with my dog, looking at the stars. I was surprised to see a pulsating, then spinning object, randomly changing white, blue and green, hovering east over the ocean, for 5 minutes. I took a couple of videos with my phone that pulsated for about 2 minutes and changed to a cube spinning on its corner. At one point, a smaller light appears at the upper right of the object, but it only lasts for about a second. It then slowly moved north/northeast for about a minute. I lost sight of it when it started getting smaller, giving me the impression that it was moving further out to sea. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Tennessee Orbs
Gatlinburg— My son sent me this picture as he took it upon entering the Smokey Mountains without seeing the objects in the picture on February 18, 2018.
I asked him if that was a ufo and he said, “no he was sending a pic of the mountains.” I will attach the original pic and the zoom pic.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Washington Diamond
Hurricane Ridge Lodge— This photo is from the webcam at the Hurricane Ridge Lodge.
The elevation at a little over 5,200 feet. I captured the photo, and saved it.
Then I put it in Photoshop to enlarge it and cropped it to just the object. See both photos taken on February 12, 2018
Thanks to William Puckett, Director Http://www.UFOsnw.com
Worldwide UFO Sightings
Australia Object
Miranda NSW— Taking my grandson down my drive to meet his mother, I looked up to see this object in the sky on July 29, 2014. It didn’t look like a plane, so I asked my grandson, “What do you think that is?” (It’s on the video). He wasn’t sure. I knew it was something significant. Firstly it was pink, travelling straight across my vision boomerang shape. Not one person has an explanation. I took video and photos with my iPhone 5 at the time, and when I zoomed in was really amazed at what I saw. So I keep looking up! I have my own theories as to how this all unfurls. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Canada Tear Drops
Calgary — I was traveling back to Calgary from visiting my sister in Winnipeg on a Westjet flight at 40,000 feet. I glanced for a second outside and seen two white kind of tear drop things flying off in the distance. I had my iPhone in my hand and quickly took one pic before the two objects were gone. They were white in color with no exhaust trails which made them look real bizarre. I knew it had to be two UFOs. Sighting lasted maybe 7 seconds. It was incredible!
Thanks to MUFON CMS
Costa Rica Disc
Quepos–1. I was a passenger in the front seat of a friend’s car on the Pan American Highway on my way to go fishing in Quepos, Costa Rica, at approx. 4:25pm on January 31, 2018. 2. I decided to take a vacation photo of the palm trees though the windshield as we were driving. 3. I observed an object moving erratically on the screen of my tablet camera, when I looked up, the object was not visible. Yet as soon as I again looked at the tablet, the object was observable and moving erratically and at high speed. 4. The object was invisible to the naked eye and could only be seen with the aid of the camera lens on the tablet screen. I never even really saw it until later in the evening, when I got a chance to look at the pictures. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Dominican Republic Orb
Punta Cana— I was at a resort in just starting my vacation lying in the sun by a swimming pool and looked up at a perfectly clear sky on February 12, 2018.
I noticed an object that was moving across the sky, I thought it was an airplane because of how high up it was.
The object stopped and hovered for at least an hour before I lost interest in the object so I took some video and pictures.
Thanks to MUFON CMS
France Disc
Houssen— I looked out the window and saw a low-flying object, while I reached the camera, the UFO flew about 500 meters at an altitude of about 30 meters and began to drop to a height of 10 meters. On February 10, 2018
I will not describe what a UFO was in detail, in the face, it could disappear and become invisible, such as a portal or masking. Five minutes later I cycled to the field for the last time I saw the UFO. But after a while, then began to occur paranormal things always, then I found a dozen different types of UFOs. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Korea Lights
Hwa Jeong Duk Yang Ku— Last May, one night I looked up to the sky to see the stars in front of my house. Then, suddenly I happened to see the blinking slowly flying object in the sky around at 9 p.m. At first, I thought it was a helicopter it didn’t make any noise. After that incidence, in fact, I could often see it 2 or 3 times a week on average. Once I climbed up the mountain and succeeded to see it very closely. Its shape is a black right triangle with three blinking lights on its three corners with a faint red light in the center. It’s bigger than a helicopter but not bigger than a plane. It shows up every night regardless of the weather searching. It has a traveling routine orbiting the town and flies over the mountains and military facilities. – It follows me wherever I go See Korean UFO hunter on YOU TUBE. The real Area 51 is in Korea! Thanks to MUFON CMS
Mexico Light
Cancun — When zooming in on the photo I took, I could see what looks like an outer shape to the object,
Photo taken on February 19, 2018. Thanks to MUFON CMS
New Zealand 1909
Otago Daily Times told its readers on Monday 26 July 1909 that:
SUPPOSED AIRSHIP. SEEN AT KELSO
The mysterious “airship” has been seen again, this time in broad daylight. On Saturday Mr. Gibson, of Kelso [S45°54’, E169°13’], telephoned us stating that at noon on Friday [23 July 1909], the school children be held in the air a strange machine, which they described as shaped like a boat, with what seemed like the figure of a man seated in it. The “airship” approached from the direction of the Blue Mountains [S45°55’, E169°22’], circled high over the school, and then disappeared in the direction whence it came. The phenomenon was also observed by Mrs. James Russell, of Kelso. Possible depiction of craft.
Our Kelso correspondent telegraphed as follows; – “There is not the slightest doubt that the airship was seen at Kelso yesterday at noon. I have eye witnesses to prove this. It is cigar or “boat” shaped and pointed at each end. Those who saw it had no idea of the probable height of it above them. It did not appear to be very long in build, but was very broad. The children who saw it say that it had a pontoon-shaped part above the boat and a short pole or mast, in the centre. It flew over and past the school ground, turned round, and went back the way it came. It was flying along very easily, and had no trouble in turning. It came from the direction of the Blue Mountains and over The Wooded Hill above Kelso, and seemed to make back direct to the mountains again. It was seen by at least five persons, and their statements are all in accord.”
This daylight account, which mentions an aviator, was circulated throughout New Zealand by the UPA wire service. It created great public interest and launched the “Kelso Airships” as a media phenomenon.
UK/England Disc
Cornwall— I was on holiday we stopped to take some pictures of the beautiful countryside and I noticed a lot of strange objects in the pics on July 1, 2018 24, 2017. I know there was no sound and no sighting by eye but they are there in the pics the other one I was taking pics as we were driving past an RAF airbase and there seems to be ufos in those also one being chased by a plane or something also we never saw with our eyes but they are in the pics, you have to zoom in but they are there. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Gainsborough— I had just bought a new camera and was trying it out by swizzling around and napping pictures to see if the was any blurring on August 3, 1998.. I took about 10 pictures doing the same thing I only looked at the first couple and they seemed good quality. so I downloaded them into a file on my computer and never thought any more about it. then I acquired a program called Picasa which found lots of photos on my computer looking through them I spotted this one I thought it might have been a bird in flight and passed it by. I have never bothered to much about it and it might be nothing at all, I will let you judge. Best Regards Derek
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I have put together a DVD of the last twenty years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings that will explain the phenomena and the importance to your life and your family. Additionally, I have included my book within the DVD that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me to write the book. We are asking for a donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.
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Our research is uncovering amazing truths by solving challenging projects deemed too difficult by other firms. We have had some success in finding missing persons. We could use your help in getting more results from our research. I have put together a DVD of the last seventeen years of Filer’s Files for you with hundreds of great photographs and UFO sightings. Additionally, I have decided to include my book within the DVD that includes George Ritter’s exciting abduction story told by Linda Moulton Howe. Broadcaster David E. Twichell joined me to write the book. We are asking for a donation of only $50 that includes next year’s subscription and our book. Please include your e-mail address and mailing address.
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Ex-Canadian Transport Minister: US Has Technology for Shooting Down UFOs
Ex-Canadian Transport Minister: US Has Technology for Shooting Down UFOs
Paul Hellyer, a whistleblower and alien conspiracy theorist, says that the US not only traded technology with aliens for years, but even possesses technology capable of shooting down extraterrestrial spaceships.
The United States has developed technology capable of downing alien spaceships, says Hellyer, a 94-year old Canadian engineer, politician, writer, commentator and alien conspiracy theorist.
"I do believe they have developed two or three kinds of weapons that are capable of disabling and bringing down UFOs," he told the Daily Star.
According to Hellyer, the United States has been exchanging technology and even salvaging technology from the advanced lifeforms.
"That is the primary purpose of the anti-ballistic missile shield, the weapons are ones that can be aimed in either direction to control the situation on Earth but equally, if not more important, to shoot down UFOs," he told the Daily Star.
What makes this claim particularly noteworthy is the fact that Hellyer was once minister of national defense of Canada from 1963 to 1967 and minister of transport from 1967 to 1969.
In 2014, Hellyer told RT that there are at least four different alien species that have visited Earth for thousands of years. Some of them are actually interacting with the US military at an Air Force base in Nevada. According to Hellyer, the US military have been exchanging technology with "Tall Whites," as he describes the alien race, since the 1960s.
According to the Daily Star, he cited former US Air Force serviceman Charles James Hall, who has written about his alleged encounters with aliens at a Nevada base, as having told Hellyer they had a hangar for a "mother ship that came into the side of a mountain on the nights of a full moon."
However, despite having weapons capable of shooting down a UFO, there is no need to do that, as the aliens are actually friendly and are more concerned about the way humans treat their planet.
"They are friendly, most observers believe, so why would we shoot at friends?" he asked.
It's also possible that the US has not shot any UFOs because, as Hellyer said in 2013 in another interview for RT, that would spark an "interstellar war." On the other hand, if the alien world turned out to have oil…
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Can Earth be hacked by aliens? Scientists say messages from space could destroy life as we know it
Can Earth be hacked by aliens? Scientists say messages from space could destroy life as we know it
Scientists warn that in the event we receive any complex messages from extraterrestrial life forms, they should be destroyed to avoid a potential threat.
Recent advances in science and technology have allowed alien hunters to scour the far reaches of space for any signs of alien life. Although we have yet to identify any evidence of extraterrestrial life, either microbial or intelligent, some scientists believe that there may be a potential threat to humanity from aliens.
In a new research paper, astrophysicists Michael Hippke and John Learned argue that telescopes designed to search for alien signals, could pick hazardous messages from intelligent extraterrestrials. According to the researchers, aliens could launch a virus or cyberattacks to shut down our computer systems.
The researchers also suggested that aliens could "gift" us with an artificial intelligence (AI) system that may trick humans into developing self-replicating nanobots and eventually deploy them to wreak havoc on our planet. The researchers argue that it would be cheaper for aliens to "send a malicious message to eradicate humans compared to sending battleships".
In one scenario, the researchers argued that a message from aliens could be a panic-inducing statement like "We will make your sun go supernova tomorrow". According to the researchers, if such a threatening message is received in just one location, it may be possible to contain and even destroy it. "If it is received repeatedly, perhaps even by amateurs, containment is impossible," the researchers wrote in a paper available online on arXiv.
In another scenario, the scientists argue that humans could be tricked into begetting their own demise by aliens offering the "gift" of knowledge. For instance, aliens could transmit a message that reads: "We are friends. The galactic library is attached. It is in the form of an artificial intelligence (AI) which quickly learns your language and will answer your questions. You may execute the code following these instructions..."
In this scenario, the researchers suggest that even if the utmost care is taken to isolate the AI – by flying the system to the moon and wiring it up with explosives so it can be shut down immediately in the event of a threat, the AI would still likely have some human contact.
"Even in a military-style, adamant experiment, there will still be humans involved who go home after examination work with their own feelings. Even if everything is officially secret, whistle-blowers might get some news out to the public," the researchers wrote. "Quickly, there could be a community on Earth in favor of letting it out for religious, philosophical etc. reasons.
"If the AI promises to cure cancer, or offers a message of salvation, a cult could form. Maybe (or maybe not) a majority of the population would be in favor of releasing the AI. Should, or even could, a democratic government work against the majority of its people? Dictatorships are unstable and eventually overthrown; the AI will be eventually released. Then, the worst possible result would be human extinction or some other unrecoverable global catastrophe."
The scientists warn that in the event we receive any complex messages from extraterrestrial life forms, they should be destroyed to avoid a potential threat.
But is it even likely that we would receive messages from an alien civilisation in a language that we understand?
"In movies, extraterrestrials often communicate with us in colloquial English. But a real message from space is likely to be no more understandable than a digital TV signal would be to Guglielmo Marconi," Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute, wrote in an op-ed in NBC News. "An alien transmission is unlikely to be a Trojan horse — but it would at least tell us that there's someone outside the gates."
Scientific reasons people might believe in aliensiStock
Open Minds UFO Radio: This is an exclusive interview of Luis Elizondo, the former head of a secret Pentagon project to investigate UFOs. The project was called the Advanced Aerial Threat Identification Program (AATIP). An article on Dec. 16, 2017 in the New York Times revealing the program made worldwide headlines. Thus far, short media interviews are all Elizondo has participated in. In this exclusive interview, Elizondo answers questions from UFO Congress social media followers and friends.
See the entire 2018 International UFO Congress presentation, including a review of how this revelation came about, and insight from Nick Pope, who ran a similar UFO program for the UK’s Ministry of Defense, at the UFO Congress Video-on-Demand page. IUFOC Video-on-Demand: https://www.ufocongressvideos.com
In no particular order, here is a list of things Tom DeLonge has consistently claimed to believe: UFOs are real, aliens are real and they visit us episodically, the U.S. government has known about alien life for decades, the U.S. government has been actively experimenting with alien technologies, the Nazis were involved in Roswell, the Cold War was actually an international cover-up about extraterrestrial life, there was more to the moon landing than we were told, the mass of nuclear weapons the U.S. has is being held for a war with aliens, human evolution was tampered with by someone or something, and the U.S. government has a real live alien species locked up somewhere.
He used to sound crazy. Here was a dude in a beanie, his left arm inked from wrist to somewhere beneath his graphic tee, best known as the former co-frontman of the rock band Blink-182. In interviews, the words coming out of his mouth made less sense than the 40 “na”sstrung together in the chorus of “All the Small Things.” This would have been fine — a creative mind susceptible to wild ideas is hardly unique. Except Tom DeLonge didn’t just have a passing interest or affinity; he was planning a crusade.
In late 2015, months after he announced his departure from Blink-182, Tom DeLonge began reaching out to people in politics who might be able to help him find the truth and share it with the world. Maybe no one would have known he was doing it if he hadn’t been emailing with Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta. When her campaign email server leaked in March 2016, though, there was a bundle of emails from Tom DeLonge: sending links, asking Podesta questions about alien life, and trying to set up a meeting between Podesta and an Air Force general to discuss what really happened at Roswell.
He was also dabbling in alien fiction. Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows, a novel, came out in April 2016. He has a young adult series called Poet Anderson, a children’s book, and both an alien-inspired album and short film slated to come out later this year. Each of these projects is meant to be grounded in the knowledge DeLonge has acquired through his years of research, like a bite-sized introduction to what he believes is the whole truth. In a YouTube interview with Joe Rogan in October 2017, he said, “The only way to get people to understand what the fuck is going on is to first present them the story [...] and then follow up with the science, and then show them that the [technology] you are seeing can be engineered and created.”
So next comes the science. In October 2017, with over $75,000 cash and more than a million dollars in assets, according to SEC filings, DeLonge launched the To The Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences, comprising a group of 10 scientists, aerospace engineers, and creatives. Their aim is to explore the “outer edges of science,” bringing to light ideas unpresented by mainstream discourse, and to try to discover proof of what DeLonge already believes. They’ll also create cultural products like novels and movies to make those ideas more accessible. The plan is something like: film Star Wars, release a documentary explaining hyperdrives and lightsabers, then raise the money to somehow actually build them.
And… maybe you can? In December, two months after the launch of the To The Stars Academy, The New York Times published an article revealing a decade-long, taxpayer-funded Pentagon programthat investigated UFOs without the knowledge of the American people. (The Defense Department says it closed in 2012, though some skeptics say that it’s still in existence.) Their big scoop was based off research straight from DeLonge’s foundation. Luis Elizondo, a former Pentagon employee who ran the department and became the story’s main source, was one of the first employees of To The Stars.
Former Nevada Senator Harry Reid, who greenlit the secret Pentagon program for investigating UFOs, supports DeLonge’s cause. “I think what DeLonge helped start is really wonderful,” Reid told The FADER. “I think it’s remarkable that he’s gotten this team together. They’re all scientists with deep experience.”
Suddenly, DeLonge didn’t sound like a man possessed. He sounded like a man who knew something. “I know that it’s fun to make snarky comments, but this isn’t the kind of thing to joke about,” he told the New York Daily News in December. “This is going to really affect a lot of people and a lot of people’s belief systems.” Tom DeLonge might sound crazy to you, but he’s already had one of his claims verified. And there’s no telling what else he believes that isn’t just conspiratorial rambling, but truth.
I know that it’s fun to make snarky comments, but this isn’t the kind of thing to joke about.
This is the story of how Tom DeLonge got very, very serious about aliens.
On the 1999 Blink-182 album Enema of the State, DeLonge co-wrote the song titled “Aliens Exist.” The next year, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said that the track was “about aliens that come to earth and fly up your butt [...] and it’s true,” hence the “enema” in the album’s title. “I’m one of those freaks that really believes that stuff exists,” he wrote in a program for the accompanying tour. “I think if anybody out there does a little bit of research they will find that they side with me.”
In 2000, his Blink-182 bandmate Mark Hoppus toldRolling Stonethat Tom “believes anything he reads. You could say, ‘I read in a magazine that an alien landed in Australia. A doctor found him and did an autopsy – there’s footage on the Internet.’ And Tom wouldn’t even question it. He would take it as gospel and go around telling everybody.”
The band gave DeLonge the platform to talk about what he believed and, because he was already famous, a built-in audience. In 2011, the same year Blink released their sixth studio album, he launched his own (now-defunct) website for conspiracy theories called StrangeTimes. In 2012, he went on Larry King to discuss UFOs: “Everyone wants evidence, but no one will take testimony,” a flustered DeLonge told to a UFO skeptic. Of course he was flustered, because at that point, testimony was all he had — that is, until he met his first alien in 2015. Well, maybe heard is a better word for it.
DeLonge was traveling in the desert around Area 51 with some fellow believers filming a documentary about UFOs and government cover-ups. His tired crew drove off-road to find a good place to build a fire, set up a tent, and, hell, maybe try to reach some aliens. That night, when DeLonge awoke to “a chorus of voices — hundreds of people talking around the tent,” he already knew that aliens don’t speak like we do. “They speak on the level of consciousness,” he told George Noory on the late-night radio show Coast to Coast AM, which focuses on the paranormal. When he woke up the next morning, his experience was confirmed: a traveling companion had heard the same thing. (DeLonge denied multiple requests to comment for this piece.)
The experience in the desert affirmed his years of questioning. Years where he had read, by his own count, more than 200 books on the subject. Finally with proof, he quit Blink-182 to focus full-time on UFOs. “I can’t tour nine months out of the year with enough time to do the enormity of what I’m setting out to do,” he told Mic. He sought out Podesta and members of the intelligence community until, by his telling of it, DeLonge was inducted into a metaphorical tent of secrets by the United States government.
Here is what he says happened: One day, out of the blue, an email landed in his inbox. Meet us at the Pentagon at this date and time, it said. DeLonge won’t say who it’s from, but at the emailer’s request, he flew to D.C. and went to the Pentagon. Soon, he was on the phone with United States generals. He was flown to NASA and, in meetings behind closed doors, he met with more people who told him state secrets and guided him to others who could help. At one of these meetings — at an otherwise empty restaurant in an airplane hangar — one of these government sources told the legendary pop-punker “[they] found a life form” during the Cold War.
Tom’s story sounds like a conspiracy theory on steroids. It sounds like the ramblings of a very high man. It sounds like someone you definitely do not want to be your boss. Unless, of course, he’s right.
Sometimes you have to do things like this to do what is necessary: to make sure that the public is getting the information they deserve.
Tom DeLonge’s greatest skill used to be selling records. He’s not a scientist or an engineer, or an intelligence official. He certainly doesn’t have any sort of national security clearance. And yet, he’s supposedly having conversations with generals in hangars, learning secrets that the government (again, supposedly) can’t tell anyone else. Why? Well, Tom Delonge says it’s because he can provide a service that nobody else can: he has a platform they need.
“No one can debate that having conversations at that level is very, very rare,” says Alejandro Rojas, a UFO reporter who runs the International UFO Congress, the largest UFO conference in the United States. “[DeLonge is] able to get people to open up and talk with him. This is a cool guy you want to hang with and you want to be buddies with.” Those conversations and that amiability set him up to recruit a team impressive to almost anyone.
In a span of eight months with To The Stars, DeLonge recruited Jim Semivan, formerly of the CIA; Dr. Hal Puthoff, an esteemed technology scientist; Steve Justice, the former program director for Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs; Chris Mellon, former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and Bush Administrations; and half a dozen other highly qualified, highly esteemed scientists.
“Forgive the cliché,” says Luis Elizondo, who once ran the government’s secret UFO investigation program and is now the To The Stars Director of Global Security & Special Programs, “but this is really a rockstar team.”
Every UFO researcher who spoke to The FADER for this piece agreed: the most unbelievable thing about this whole ordeal is how good DeLonge’s team is. “It might seem odd to some people that Tom DeLonge has built up this impressive team of scientists and former government insiders, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Nick Pope, an author, journalist and TV personality who used to study UFOs for the British government, says. “People do get starry-eyed, especially if your whole career has been about secrecy and silence. A rockstar is the absolute antithesis of that, and so it’s appealing.”
For decades, many aspects of government research — and especially anything having to do with alien life and UFOs — have been kept under a strict lock-and-key of security clearances. The CIA has declassified boxes of documentation dating back to the late 1940s from its own inconclusive investigations into UFO sightings. In 1947, the United States Air Force funded a program called Project Blue Book, which allowed American citizens to call in and report UFO sightings which would then be investigated by the team. A total of 12,618 sightings were reported before the Air Force terminated the program in 1969, and 701 of those remain “unidentified.”
There’s nothing more polar opposite from working in a dark room deep in the Pentagon than having your ideas and discoveries made into blockbuster movies. That’s especially true for Elizondo, whose job was caught in bureaucratic red tape and secrecy for a number of years. He told The FADER that when the funding for the so-called Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program came through in 2013, the verbiage was so unclear that another department took it, leaving him standing guard over his post without being relieved of duty for several years. He kept doing his job, investigating UFOs, but the organizational set-up kept him from being able to communicate his findings with his bosses.
So he wrote a resignation letter and left. “I had to leave the department that I loved so much in order to make sure information reached who it needed to reach,” he says. “Sometimes you have to do things like this to do what is necessary: to make sure that the public is getting the information they deserve.”
The resignation letter was leaked to the press (Elizondo says not by him), and that’s how the news that the government had been operating a secret UFO investigations team got out. A day or two before Elizondo left the department, DeLonge invited him to come work for him. The role presented a big change, even though Elizondo says his mission is the same. “I spent my entire career in the shadows,” he says. “With my past, this [press attention] is not very comfortable. [...] I’m so glad to be a part of this, but I definitely do not like the spotlight in any regard.”
No matter what To The Stars produces, Delonge has said, all of the organization’s efforts will be produced in communication with the Department of Defense. If Delonge is right, it would mean that the U.S. government will be publicly sharing information and ideas through a civilian. That’s the part — not the beliefs, or the ideas, or the plan — that concerns members of the UFO community. “I realized that this was the real deal,” UFO researcher Grant Cameron said in a 2017 interview, when he heard the list of names Tom DeLonge had recruited. “I’m thinking: I’ve seen this before.” The whole thing, Cameron said, reminds him of Bill Moore, the man who made Roswell famous in 1980 with a book relying on top-level government sources.
Cameron, and many others in the UFO community, believe that DeLonge is being used the same way Moore was, as part of the U.S. government’s “disclosure plan.” According to Cameron, “leaking stories is totally a U.S. phenomena,” and he believes that is the U.S. government’s way of allowing the public to know some information about extraterrestrial life. “They’re leaking the story, but they’re protecting the classified material.” And DeLonge, Cameron said, “is gonna make globs of money at the same time.”
But thus far, that’s not really true. To The Stars is set up as a public-benefit corporation, meaning that they are not exclusively trying to reap a profit and will be directed at the will of their shareholders to achieve a purpose, in this case studying UFOs. To The Stars is currently running a crowdfunding campaign to do research. As of publication, it has raised $2,392,022 with 2,606 investors. That’s 1/100th of the $200 million dollars they’re aiming for. But even if they meet that goal, it will still only be a beginning. A single F-35 stealth fighter costs around $100 million to make, and people already know how to build that.
Doubters of alien life and UFO existence, of course, are not going to be jazzed about DeLonge’s venture, but there are many who hope DeLonge triumphs. Plenty of American citizens seem open to discussions about alien life and discovery. A 2017 survey done by 20th Century Fox supposedly found that nearly 47% of Americans believe in aliens, and 39% believe aliens have visited earth before. The audience is there. The money just isn’t, at least yet. “I hope the Koch brothers would fund this rather than all the worthless stuff they do,” Senator Reid told The FADER.
In October 2016, DeLonge was a celebrity whose spastic emails to a campaign manager had leaked into the public domain. In October 2017, when To the Stars was announced, it was easy to dismiss the whole thing as a rockstar-funded vanity project. But in December, he was the president and CEO of a company that’s existence revealed a decade-long covert government UFO operation. DeLonge has a slew of out-there beliefs, but six months ago one of those beliefs was the existence of Elizondo’s program. And as of now, it’s completely unclear which of DeLonge’s beliefs are based on his own personal study and what other secrets he actually knows.
“[Our] success is reliant on the American people,” Elizondo says. “If they want us to be successful, I think we’ll flourish. If the American people decide it’s too fringe, I think the future is bleak. But I tend to be an optimist.”
Tom Delonge photo via Getty/C Flanigan / Contributor. Asteroid and comet
imagery courtesy Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech; Farmer Trent’s Flying saucer, Life Magazine, 26 June 1950 courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 73 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
Jonathan McDowell ✔@planet4589
ESA ✔@esa
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